Originally published by Glenn Beck.
We may be witnessing the most successful foreign malign influence operation in modern history, and our response to it will determine the future of Christianity and ultimately the survival of the U.S.
Russian propaganda is not relegated to our history books. It’s alive and well today. By paying attention to the entirety of what the Russian government was preaching, I was able to accurately foresee that Russia would seize Crimea and then try to take over all of Ukraine years in advance. In 2014, I wrote a two – part series about how Putin’s regime saw conquering Ukraine and other areas with Russian-speaking populations as a spiritual requirement. The Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, organizations like the Strategic Culture Foundation, and influence agents like Alexander Dugin, who Glenn Beck has been warning about for over a decade , are waging an ideological war in the same manner as Islamist governments and organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, as chronicled in Torch’s exclusive documentary, The Jihad Within .
According to Charles Clover , when communism was in crisis in 1987, the Moscow Communist Party leader and later Soviet Politburo member Yuri Prokofiev led a team in examining how to rebrand communism in hopes of revitalizing it. His team came up with a plan for a “new Soviet ideology” that “imbued secular communism with a theological meaning” by “resembling a fusion of communism, nationalism and Orthodox Christianity…”
Prokofiev later co-founded and led the Strategic Culture Foundation until 2015. It is still active today and sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for being a front for the Russian SVR intelligence service, specifically its directorate for “active measures.”
“It publishes conspiracy theorists, giving them a broader platform to spread disinformation, while trying to obscure the Russian origins of the journal so that readers may be more likely to trust the sourcing,” according to the Treasury Department.
Prokofiev’s goal was to spread the work of conspiracy theorists to be used for disinformation. The strategy of exploiting non-Russian conspiracy theorists so they echo Russia’s disinformation is called narrative laundering , and it’s a defining feature of Russia’s cognitive warfare today. The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, Patriarch Kirill, was an intelligence officer in the 1970s and likely still is. He depicts Putin as an almost messianic, divinely guided figure. The Russian government often persecutes non-Orthodox Christians, viewing them as Western-oriented. Christians in Ukraine are targeted on a large scale . In 2012, Kirill declared that Putin’s leadership is a “miracle from God.” Putin went to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and instructed Kirill to bless crosses to be given to military commanders and to put Putin’s initials on the chains that go with them.
The Church describes Russia as a “holy” country and says “the entire territory of modern Ukraine must be placed within Russia’s exclusive zone of influence.”
In 2014, Kirill preached a doctrine called Russkiy Mir , meaning the “Russian World.” It holds that Russia has a spiritual duty to unify all Russian populations under its helm, including those outside of Russia’s borders, and protect them. He broadened the definition of the “Russian World” to include non-Russians who adopt the Russian World’s ideology.
“This world may include people who are not part of the Slavic world at all, but who have embraced the cultural and spiritual components of this world as their own,” he said.
Islamism’s Christian Counterpart
This Tsarist form of Christianity is very similar to Islamism in its dedication to unifying the Muslim World—the ummah —under a caliphate.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Russian Orthodox Church preached that the West is “Satanic” and that the invasion is a “holy war,” reminiscent of how Islamists declare jihad as a synonym for “holy war.”
The Church also mirrors Islamism’s doctrine that dying in “holy war” guarantees entry into heaven. Kirill ruled , “We believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins they have committed,” referring to Russians who die in the war in Ukraine.
Russia even has blasphemy laws . After a Quran was burned in Sweden in 2023, Putin condemned it and said that desecrating a Quran is illegal in Russia. He also said in 2021 that insulting Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, is not protected under his definition of freedom because it is “a violation of freedom of religion and a violation of the holy feelings of people who profess Islam.”
Kirill said in 2016, “Together we have to defeat the propaganda machine directed against our moral values, and to counter the demonization of Islam.”
Russia’s Tsarist Christianity sees Islamism as more than an ally of convenience against a common enemy but as its permanent partner in a joint “holy war” against the West. Putin says the Russian Orthodox Church is closer to Islam than to pro-Western Christianity. A key ally of Putin’s is Ramzan Kadyrov, the Islamist who rules Russia’s Muslim-majority Chechen Republic and has instituted elements of Sharia Law. In 2024, Putin kissed a Quran that Kadyrov gave to him.
When Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei was killed, Kirill published a letter to the Iranian President praising Khamenei as “a man of profound religious convictions, a spiritual and national leader of great strength of spirit and character.”
But don’t both sides know that only one of them can ultimately prevail?
Alexander Dugin, a top Russian influence agent known as “Putin’s Brain” and advisor to the Iranian regime, is working to fix that dilemma. He is preaching that the Christian and Islamic End Times prophecies are compatible, and so the alliance should be permanent at least until the Battle of Armageddon is finished.
Dugin is suggesting that the apocalyptic final battle will feature a Zionist and Western coalition led by a Jewish Antichrist facing off against a coalition consisting of the Muslim world led by the Mahdi (Islam’s messianic figure) and the Orthodox Christians led by a mysterious figure or entity called Katechon that is prophesied to resist the Antichrist. Dugin believes Russia is Katechon.
The Plan
Russia’s strategy for Tsarist Christianity is rooted in a fundamental hypocrisy: It requires Russia and its allies to absorb themselves in sin in order to entice enough sin in the West that the U.S. rips itself apart.
Dugin articulated his vision in his 1997 book, Foundations of Geopolitics:
“[Russia must] weaken, demoralise, deceive, and ultimately, defeat the enemy as much as possible. It is especially important to bring geopolitical turmoil into the US domestic reality by encouraging all kinds of separatism, various ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, and actively supporting all dissident movements of extremist, racist, and sectarian groups that destabilize internal political processes in the USA.
At the same time, it makes sense to support isolationist tendencies in US politics, the theses of those (often right-wing Republican) circles that believe that the US should confine itself to its domestic problems. This state of affairs is highly advantageous to Russia…”
At this point, you won’t be surprised to learn that Dugin has a history of dabbling in occultism, black magic , fascism, Nazism and even Satanism. These influences can be found throughout his work.
The nature of these beliefs and fantastical goals can cause people to dismiss the threat they pose. As irrational as you may find those beliefs and goals, the strategy to defeat the West is very rational and doable.
In fact, a history-shaping influence operation is taking place right now before your eyes. Candace Owens’s Trip to Russia: An Example. Not the Story.
The internet is ablaze after the latest revelation of American podcaster Candace Owens, undisclosed activities in Russia with known intelligence and propaganda operatives. Torch Insiders were critical in unearthing the truth about her visit.
Read my in-depth exposé of her trip here , here , and here .
But Candace Owens’ suspicious trip to Russia is not actually the story. Her trip is proof of the real story. But we will miss it if we reduce this conversation to individual influencers and their conflicts.
Glenn Beck listeners understand the threat Aleksandr Dugin’s ideology poses to the West, but, unfortunately, his ideas are entering American minds through major U.S. podcasters, like Owens, who admits to owning two of Dugin’s books and, on May 26, announced she was visiting St. Petersburg the next week for a family vacation. She described it as a religious excursion to visit Christian sites. We then discovered that she hadn’t disclosed the true purpose of her trip: speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in Russia on June 4 . Putin and Dugin will also be speaking.
Dugin will be on a panel on June 3 titled, “The main threats to Russia in the second quarter of the 21st century.”
SPIEF is a hotspot for Russian intelligence and is organized by the senior-most levels of the Russian government. Putin’s top advisors and the First Deputy Director of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, are on the Organizing Committee .
Investigative documents show that SPIEF activities, specifically including its panels, are “recruitment pipelines” for “state-directed soft power programs” to enlist “foreign influencers” in projects such as “media partnerships.” The files state that the panels are particularly used for this purpose. Owens is on a panel filled with known Russian disinformation agents sanctioned by the U.S. and E.U., including at least one strongly linked to the Russian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate.
The panel that Owens will appear on is titled “Big Family, Big Reach: New Demographics and Narratives for Media Managers.” The speakers will be discussing how to achieve “deep engagement and long-term audience loyalty” with content that promotes “family values” and parenthood.
The description of the panel says they will also discuss a peculiar question: “What is more effective: direct financial payments and targeted assistance or a comprehensive ecosystem?” The significance of that question cannot be overstated. This is a discussion about how Russia can best help its state-directed media and the media work of those on the panel. Russia’s “comprehensive ecosystem” is already doing so. RT (formerly Russia Today), for example, frequently amplifies Owens’s content. The network posted over a dozen clips of her interview with Hunter Biden and mocked my Newsmax segment about her.
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