The West can no longer ignore the corrosive effects of Russian ideology in America’s information ecosystem. Although Russian influence operations have been well documented throughout the United States and Europe, one particular strand of ideology has become deeply embedded among the online far-right in a way often overlooked by traditional media coverage.
Traditionalism in its modern form emerged at the end of the Soviet Union as a reaction to Marxism-Leninism. Its core beliefs reject modernity as an ideology unconcerned with the principles of the past and decry the decay of the nuclear household. The family unit to traditionalists represents an inherent metaphysical order where declining birthrates and the breakup of the family undermine national purpose. Traditionalism espouses a return to the biological imperative of two genders—men and women—each with defined roles. Women are valued for their child-rearing and domestic qualities while men are expected to be the providers and protectors of the family. These retrograde ideas may sound familiar to those familiar with the ideological teachings of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk or social media tycoon Elon Musk, who once tweeted, “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.”
Although traditionalism might look like an ideology masking itself behind a resurgence in conservative Christianity, its lineage in fact traces back to the late period of the Soviet Union and Aleksandr Dugin. Following the death of Kirk, Dugin wrote “Charlie Kirk was on our side of the front line that now divides humanity.” American conservatives indeed see the political landscape in much the same way, praising Russia for “getting it right.” In April 2024, far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson traveled to Moscow to interview Dugin for his show, providing the far-right Russian philosopher with a platform to expound his ideas.
To be culturally important a new ideology must supplant the tenets of the prevailing ideology in a society, effectively seizing a position of cultural moral authority. Dugin, like many young scholars in the Soviet Union, formed his early beliefs in accordance with Marx’s teachings on materialism and Lenin’s teachings on the revolutionary vanguard. However, increasingly disillusioned by socialism, Dugin joined Pamyat, a far-right, anti-Semitic, pro-monarchy organization. In 1997, Dugin published his most popular work, Foundations of Geopolitics, which drew from the anti-Semitic and eugenic components of Eurasianism that came from historian Lev Gumilev. Further ideological influences on Dugin’s work include Carl Schmitt’s idea that politics is inherently adversarial with friends and enemies and Heidegger’s formulation of Dasein as a rejection of universalism in favor of a primitivist, racial-cultural Volkishness.
A 2014 article in Foreign Affairs first claimed that Dugin was the brainchild behind Putin’s decision-making in Crimea. Dugin was also thought to have the president’s ear during the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine. Although Dugin’s ultimate influence over political decisionmaking is debated among scholars of Russian ideology, it’s important to understand how Putin has developed Dugin’s ideology into an oppositional force against the West.
As early as 2013, during a speech at the Valdai Club, Putin claimed, “We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization. They are denying moral principles and all traditional identities: national, cultural, religious and even sexual.” Later in 2023 during his address to the nation, Putin stated, “Look at what they do to their own people: The destruction of families, of cultural and national identities and the perversion that is child abuse all the way up to pedophilia, are advertised as the norm…and priests are forced to bless same-sex marriages.”
Putin has often used this rhetoric as a means to justify his actions in opposition to those who see his invasion as imperialism. Putin claims that Western values erode the Russian people, that the West has turned away from God and tradition, that the West has degenerated into the historical equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah.
These claims have gained a staunch, almost religious following among members of the Western far-right. In addition to Kirk and Musk, a growing list of influential far-right thinkers enthusiastically support Putin’s idea of decadent Western decay. Far-right American blogger and software developer Curtis Yarvin believes in the irreconcilable brokenness of American democracy, while German-American venture capitalist Peter Thiel is highly skeptical that democracy and capitalism can coexist within society, and famously believes that democracy is no longer the best method for ensuring long-term peace and prosperity.
These influencers do not directly align themselves with Russia’s political agenda, but popular right-wing media figures often echo Russian talking points, some even going so far as to praise Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. In February 2022, Nick Fuentes, a far-right white nationalist posted on the messaging app Telegram: “I am totally rooting for Russia,” even going so far as calling Putin his tsar. In 2018, Steve Bannon, a close advisor to President Donald Trump, met with Dugin to discuss a closer relationship with the United States and Russia, and frequently praises Putin’s policies as admirably “anti-woke.”
The trickle-down effect of Russian traditionalism into a fractured cacophony of far-right propaganda can be found in an undiluted form online. In March 2025, the Huffman family moved from Texas to Russia, documenting their entire journey—from learning Russian on Duolingo to sharing videos of daily life in Russia—all the way through Derek Huffman’s decision to join the Russian army. The Huffmans became idolized figures on 4chan, a popular anonymous image board popular with young, far-right American men who sympathize with Putin’s extreme anti-woke, traditionalist agenda.
A 4chan thread called Ukraine Happening General is filled with comments conflating Ukrainians with pigs, too lazy to secure their victory against the ziggers, a slang term for supporters of Kremlin ideology. Others complain that Putin’s elite army can’t seem to liberate Russians in the Donetsk Basin from “backwater peasants.”
Calls for Ukrainian deaths show the indifference with which these anonymous individuals celebrate and even call for violence against communities that fail to embrace traditionalism. The commonality both within and across similar Ukraine threads makes clear the average 4chan user’s disdain for Ukraine as a decadent holdout of Western values, one that deserves to be forcibly “returned” to traditional Russian values. This is interesting because prior to the invasion, Ukraine’s culture was viewed by many sociologists as strongly rooted in family values, religion, and agrarianism—the core tenets of traditionalism!
Another popular talking point is the Russian propaganda myth of liberating Ukraine from its own Nazism. Yet this points to a contradiction within the online far-right, where accusations of Jewishness are frequently deployed against anyone with an unfavorable opinion of Ukraine. These two points might seem starkly in contrast with one another, but on 4chan they blend together in an extremist language of unresolved contradiction. When one anonymous individual took the side of Ukraine, they were depicted as Jewish, with a skullcap and stereotypically big nose. Other threads continue to conflate Ukrainian soldiers with Nazism, an evil that Russia must drive out. The country of Ukraine and anyone who supports it is viewed as “ZOG,” a primarily white nationalist and neo-Nazi term that means Zionist Occupied Government.
In the language of these far-right groups, the West supposedly encourages unbiblical sexual deviancy, a flood of society-destroying immigration, and a blasé relativism in committing great crimes against the white man and his heirs. The language of 4chan’s /pol/ board promotes Kremlin messaging and that of Russian ideological thinkers like Dugin in advocating anti-Semitism, traditionalism, and the decay of Western ideology and way of life.
These derivative talking points crop up in obscure messaging platforms that most people have never seen. But the trickle-down effect from Russian talking points to 4chan doesn’t stop there. What gets solidified in 4chan, especially calls towards violence, often gets parroted by individuals like Nick Fuentes, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson.
These talking points then find their way into Trump administrations memos and speeches. In February 2025, Vice President JD Vance delivered the Munich Security Conference speech in which he framed Europe’s problem as a degeneration of cultural values, the most troublesome being immigration. “No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants,” he said. President Trump has also repeatedly vowed to dismantle and restore “woke” institutions to their former traditionalist truth through a slew of executive orders signed in March 2025.
As a result of this the U.S. Agency for International Development was gutted by DOGE, allowing Russia and China to fill the gaping international messaging gap. Trump has also vowed to tackle academic wokeness, targeting 52 universities he accused of using racial preferences in admissions and adhering to a curriculum of DEI. Trump’s anti-woke budget cuts to universities have been so bad that some Ivy League institutions like Cornell’s sociology program are not taking new PhD students for the 2026 year, with many prospective candidates now turning abroad for their education.
Not only is 4chan helping the far-right consolidate its foreign-policy messaging, it also supports the far-right’s domestic goals. Such goals include telling Jews to “get the fuck out of America,” and advocating for the death of government bureaucrats unwilling to get behind illiberalism as in this comment from Bannon: “I’d put the heads on pikes. Right. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House. As a warning to federal bureaucrats: Either get with the program or you’re gone.”
The fractured messaging on 4chan amplifies Russia’s overall goal with disinformation: to further exacerbate the cracks in Western society. It also provides a way for the American far right to support a political agenda steeped in violence. As America faces increasing political polarization, Russian ideologues and Kremlin officials quietly look on in delight. 4chan’s messaging serves the Russian goal of sowing discord, creating and amplifying domestic political tensions, and further eroding the social contract that has long defined liberal democracy.
4chan is used globally by more than 20 million visitors each month. Largely unregulated, it has continued to embrace harmful, Russia-friendly propaganda. The difference today: that kind of messaging has ever greater influence over government policy.