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The “focus of discussion is switched from ‘Putin’s corruption’ to ‘opposition and its shadow money,'” Navalny said.

Both DCLeaks.com and Cyber Berkut have links to Russian security services, but the exact extent of that relationship remains shrouded in mystery. CyberBerkut burst onto the scene following Ukraine’s 2014 revolution, which ousted the country’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and is most famous for hacking into the computer system of Ukraine’s election authority during the May 2014 presidential elections, leaving breadcrumbs suggestive of ties to Russian military intelligence.

Security researchers argue that DCLeaks.com represents another Russian-backed influence operation. That website was used by the hacker calling himself Guccifer 2.0 to share documents with journalists. Guccifer 2.0 surfaced after the Democratic National Committee announced in June that it had been hacked and took credit for the operation. Security researchers and U.S. intelligence believe he is a creation of Russian intelligence to deflect attention from Moscow.

It could be that “DCLeaks and CyberBerkut are the same people or they have close connections to each other,” said Anton Cherepanov, a researcher for the Slovakian cybersecurity firm ESET, who discovered the overlap between the posted documents. It is certainly also possible, he said, that the two groups independently hacked Open Society and posted the same, but slightly different, documents.

Generally I believe that Putin really considers using hackers as a legit soft power

Navalny, for one, was not surprised to be unfairly linked to Soros.

“Generally I believe that Putin really considers using hackers as a legit soft power. No one is dead, you are not using tanks or missiles, no one can 100% prove that he is involved,” Navalny wrote.

“No men in uniform are involved, just a few guys with thick glasses and reporters who want to write an interesting story.”

Elias Groll is a staff writer at Foreign Policy, covering cybersecurity, privacy, and intelligence.