Moscow paid for “disinformation with pseudonyms”: IMHOclub’s scheme of operation revealed
The source describes how the pro-Kremlin Internet platform IMHOclub, created in Latvia, functioned – hiding under pseudonyms, fulfilling established quotas and circumventing sanctions.
A humid Friday in November 2018, as Riga residents hurried home after the work week, was an eventful day for State Security Service (SGB) officers. They arrived at three apartments in Riga’s residential complexes, detained their occupants and seized computers.
Soon the Latvian media reported about the arrest of the creators of the IMHOclub website. Jury Alekseev, a journalist who worked for the Russian press, Petr Pogorodnij, who was responsible for the portal’s finances, and one of the content editors were arrested. They were all charged with the activities of an organized group directed against the state security of Latvia. In essence, they are agents of the Kremlin’s influence in Latvia.
The criminal case file available to Re:Baltica shows that the creation of IMHOclub was supported by Moscow from the very beginning. In the decision to refer the case to the court, the prosecutor’s office writes: the money for the creation of the portal (about 150 thousand euros) was provided by the Fund for the Protection and Support of Compatriots Living Abroad (hereinafter – Pravfond), which is under the patronage of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Formally, the fund operates under the slogan “protection of compatriots,” but in reality it serves Russia’s geopolitical interests. It provides money to local pro-Kremlin figures to spread Moscow’s disinformation and divide society. When criminal cases are brought against them, including for espionage, the Legal Foundation pays for their defense (more on this here).
“The Prav Fund was created to finance Russian influence operations under the pretext of fighting discrimination [against citizens],” explains Marta Tula, a spokeswoman for the Estonian Security Police. “The main goal is to create a pretext for interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.”
From 2016 until their arrest, the defendants published at least a thousand articles on IMHOclub and Facebook in which they purposefully discredited Latvia and its geopolitical partners, talking about “blue” NATO, “Hitler’s European Union” and contemptuously calling Ukrainians “Ukropians,” the prosecutor’s office said in a document.
During the trial, which is still ongoing, Alexeyev posed on social media as a victim of political persecution. However, thousands of Pravfonds and IMHOclub emails in Re:Baltica’s possession show a different picture.
Even after the criminal case was initiated, the defendants continued to receive money from Moscow, to fulfill article norms, to hide behind pseudonyms and to build schemes to circumvent international sanctions. The flow of money stopped only in 2024, when greed led to the severing of relations with the organization in Moscow through which the money was laundered.
Re:Baltica’s calculations show that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Pravfond has allocated at least 6.4 million rubles to IMHOclub. The exact conversion into euros is difficult due to sharp exchange rate fluctuations, but the amount could be around 65 thousand euros.
Alekseev and Porogorodny received almost 17 thousand more for their lawyers.
In this research Re:Baltica reveals for the first time how IMHOclub worked.
Human rights quotas must be respected
“The first big mistake of this year is sanctions against Russia. The sanctions proved ineffective and hit the EU harder,” writes Victoria Matule in IMHOclub’s TikTok account, standing in front of a white wall and wearing a black T-shirt.
Matule’s video on IMHOclub’s TikTok account ends with a stream of money from Pravfond.
The young woman came to the attention of the DWP in May 2022 when, dressed in the colors of the Russian flag, she arrived at the Victory Monument at the height of the escalating conflict. Shortly thereafter, she claimed she was being persecuted, fled to Russia and joined the Baltic Antifascists organization, which Latvian security authorities consider criminal. In another TikTok video, Matule brazenly declares that she will return to Latvia “only with tanks”.
These revelations by Matule were paid for by the Legal Foundation.
Documents that have found their way online show that in 2022, after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, IMHOclub asked Pravfond to pay it five million rubles (approximately 57,000 euros) and began actively defaming the West.
He created channels in Instagram, Telegram and TikTok.
While Matule spoke in front of the camera, Alexander Gaponenko, who has been repeatedly accused of supporting Russian interests, was busy behind the scenes. He was the editor of IMHOclub. The authors were searched for and their articles were sent to support@imhoclub.com for publication on the portal. Re:Baltica does not know who works with this e-mail address. The correspondence gives the impression that the people behind it serve a few clients and do not understand the political situation in Latvia. The authors are stingy with words and even intolerant, regularly berating Gaponenko for sloppily designed articles and incorrect references.
From this e-mail address in July 2022, someone writes to Gaponenko that a link to the Kremlin-owned media outlet RIA was attached to the submitted article as a reference. Included in the sanctions list. “We need to improve the quality,” the author notes.
Gaponenko replies: ” But IMHOclub is also under sanctions, as are 500 other Russian electronic publications. So what should we refer to?” He goes on to explain that “from time to time we will post materials about Russia’s economic achievements, it’s important. European media do not mention it.” And adds: “Of course, without a review of the military industry.”
In August, Gaponenko wrote in a letter of support that he had read another 60-page indictment against himself and had written a “pamphlet.”
In February 2025, VDD officers detained Gaponenko for making anti-government remarks at a public event in Moscow.
“I understand that it is unseemly to publish my articles all the time, but we need to fulfill quotas for human rights materials,” Gaponenko says.
It is disgusting that you have to sign like a cat.
Gaponenko, like a number of other authors, publishes some of his articles under a pseudonym. The purpose is to avoid the attention of law enforcement agencies. Gaponenko’s pseudonym is Cat Behemoth (“Cat Behemoth”) – as in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”.
A week before the demolition of the Victory Monument in the summer of 2022, Gaponenko warns his correspondents in the support service that an article is being prepared. It will be published under a pseudonym.
“Behemoth the cat is not the best character to mobilize the Russian community, but there is no other. Writing about it means literally getting five years in prison.”
Soon after, he sends a letter and apologizes. “In the current situation, writing on behalf of a cat is disgusting, but I can’t do it any other way.” The article was due to be published on Tuesday, when the monument could have been taken down. It is not fully known and “disorienting for the Russian community”.
“God protect Russians in Latvia!” concludes Gaponenko’s letter.
Re:Baltica was unable to contact Gaponenko because at the time of writing he was in custody for making anti-state statements at a public event in Moscow.
Drinks three liters of wine but does not send emails
In August 2022, Gaponenko wrote to support that a new author, Kremlin media journalist Alexei Stefanov, is joining IMHOclub. They ask for Stefanov’s e-mail address to add him to the author’s profile. Gaponenko replies that he can’t. Stefanov visited him at his dacha, drank three liters of wine, but did not give his email address for security reasons.
“The editorial staff of Baltnews, where he works, has removed all information about the authors and their photos, entered pseudonyms, as it realizes that we live in a fascist country. (…) Please distort Alexei’s photo found on the Internet so that he cannot be recognized,” writes Gaponenko.
A recent Re:Baltica study shows that Kremlin media journalists also use anonymity to circumvent EU sanctions. Among them is the Stephanov mentioned by Gaponenko, a former journalist from Latvia who last year took Russian citizenship (read here ).
To create the impression of an international pluralistic platform of opinions, IMHOclub authors also include Kremlin agents of influence from foreign countries – Denmark, Finland and Serbia. Polish politician Mateusz Piskorski, accused of spying for Russia, and Estonian pro-Kremlin activist Dmitri Klenskis also publish articles. In 2007, he took part in the so-called “Bronze Night” riots in Tallinn, which erupted after the Estonian government decided to move a monument to Soviet soldiers from the city center to a military cemetery.
Despite the official blocking in Latvia, the IMHOclub website continues to operate under a different domain name.
Attracting propaganda stars to the Latvian IMHOclub does not bring much results.
Despite its productivity – 35 videos and almost 600 articles have been created – the audience reached is modest. Telegram and TikTok have an average of 1000 subscribers each, while FB and Instagram have only 70. The website has a better result – an average of 40,000 views per month.
Excerpt from a report sent to Pravfond by IMHOclub organization on the work done.
This seems to be the reason why the Legal Foundation is shutting off the money tap. The Angry Matule video on IMHOclub channels was a success.
Propagandists don’t work for free
This does not mean that local propagandists will refuse funding in 2023. They are asking for it – and almost twice as much as before (9.6 million rubles). This time he promises to inform his compatriots not only in the Baltics, but also in Moldova and Poland.
The project’s application form, which Re:Baltica received, outlines three main objectives: “to counter the demonization of Russians in Europe, to create a loyal attitude towards Russia among European citizens, and to educate Ukrainian refugees in Poland”.
Fragment of a document in which the founders of IMHOclub ask for money from Pravfond.
Gaponenko and the Pole Piskorski are again listed as editors. Not only Victoria Matule will work with young people. Roman Samuls, another “defender of compatriots” who fled from Latvia to Belarus, will also prepare “educational materials”.
However, the Legal Fund allocates only one fifth of the requested amount – two million rubles. Dissatisfied with the decision, IMHOclub in a letter to the executive director of the fund, former Russian ambassador to Latvia Alexander Udaltsov, threatens that he will write to the management of the fund to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
But the threats do not work. IMHOclub’s TikTok account does not come to life.
IMHOclub offers a separate grant to organize another international study of Nazism, on the platform of which a conference could also be held. They again ask for nine million rubles.
They already have experience in organizing such an event. At the end of 2022, they organized an online “anti-fascism” conference. The result was another resolution that argues that the “Ukrainian conflict” is rooted in the government’s discriminatory treatment of other ethnic groups. The resolution was signed by representatives of 26 countries, including China, India, Denmark and the Baltic States, and sent to a number of international organizations, including the UN, the Council of Europe and the European Commission.
It is not clear from the documents whether the activists received money for the second conference, but Pravfond allocated five million rubles for the maintenance of the IMHOclub. In the request for money, the portal’s creators write that the platform in the Baltics has become a symbol that cannot be broken: “Like a red flag proudly flying over the stronghold of truth and justice.
It is impossible to negotiate a “commission”
But even indestructible bastions of propaganda crumble because of human weaknesses.
Since 2022, the Legal Defense Fund no longer pays IMHOclub directly – the money goes to the portal’s creators through the MAI Foundation. This fund transfers the money to IMHOclub’s financial manager, Peter Pogorodniy, at the Agency for Creative Research in Moscow. Re:Baltica does not know how the money will be distributed.
In Latvia, Pogorodnij owns a company with the same name, but its turnover is insignificant. It would be crazy to count on Russia in this matter, since he is already on trial in Latvia for anti-state activities.
IMHOclub is also requesting money through the Moscow University Foundation in 2023 and 2024, when Pravfond will already be on the EU sanctions lists.
That scheme collapsed late last year. In mid-November, Pogodoronii sends a letter to Udaltsov in which he refuses the additional three million rubles requested just a month ago. The reason is that the “financial policy” of the Moscow University Foundation has changed.
In fact, Porodorny is in conflict with Mark Liberzon, head of the Moscow University Foundation. The latter charges a significant commission for the use of the fund.
Re:Baltica contains correspondence between the two. Thus, since 2022, 6.4 million rubles, or 65,000 euros, have been transferred through the Moscow University Foundation. Liberzon asks for 20 percent. Pogorodny replies that we can only talk about 2024, but not about the previous stage.
Liberzon does not give up. He allegedly learned about the facts of document forgery, his signature and the seal of the fund were copied. “Our foundation received budget funds, which we transferred to your company, and you then did with this money at your discretion. Most of these funds were spent for purposes other than those for which they were allocated from the Fund for Support of Compatriots,” Liberzon complained.
Pogorodny is outraged by “threats and blackmail”.
“What was going on really amazed me – the last time I encountered such nonsense was in the 1990s: recorded conversations, insults bordering on hysteria, threats and blackmail,” writes Pogorodny.
In the end, Liberzon offers a compromise – 800,000 rubles (about 8,000 euros). True, it is not quite clear whether this was the final offer.
The IMHOclub case is still pending in the first instance, and the defendants are participating remotely. Alekseev is from Belarus, Pogorodny, of course, from Russia.
Neither Pogorodny nor Liberzon have responded to Re:Baltica’s request for comment, nor has Re:Baltica received a response from the editor and “face” of IMHOclub, Yuri Alekseev. Both Pogordny and Alekseev have left Latvia. As is known, the former lives in Russia, the latter in Belarus.
Last fall, Alekseev fled to Belarus, shortly before the final verdict in another criminal case came into force. There he was sentenced to a year and two months in prison for writing offensive comments on the Internet and distributing child pornography. Re:Baltica has the decision of the court of first instance, which shows that hiding behind the nicknames CCCP, Bl, Russia and Tank, Alekseev wrote comments such as: “all Latvians are fascist scum”, “Latvians are trying to destroy us Russians, but this cannot be allowed” and “we must take up arms and act, and Russia will help us!” During a search of Alekseev’s home, investigators seized a hard disk containing 39 video files and 904 photos of child pornography, as well as five more videos showing sadistic sexual acts. Earlier, Alekseev claimed that these were photos of his own children.
Both Alekseev and Pogorodny continue to participate remotely in the proceedings of IMHOclub, which is accused of anti-state activity. As of August 2022, the case is still pending in the first instance.