AllatRa: A Russian Cult Is Now Lobbying Washington, the EU, and the United Nations and Engaging in Mass Disinformation

A Freedom of Mind Report

Ukraine’s Security Service has designated AllatRa as working “for the benefit of Russian special services,” while the group simultaneously lobbies the U.S. Congress and has secured an audience with Pope Francis.

So, what’s really going on here?

According to AllatRa, the group serves as an avenue to “explore global climate change on Earth” and “strive to apply their skills and best qualities for the benefit of society.”

However, despite what AllatRa would have you believe, the group serves as a sophisticated disinformation network spanning 41 countries. Its leader is wanted and in hiding in Slovakia, and its registered lobbyist is currently pushing climate apocalypticism to American lawmakers.

Concerningly, AllatRa, as part of a recent slew of lobbying efforts, has announced a conference set to take place on January 22, 2026, at the U.S. Capitol Complex, featuring “spiritual ambassadors” hosted by Pastor Mark Burns.

Burns, a figure connected to Trump’s faith operations, has also participated in Michael Flynn’s ReAwaken America tours. Meanwhile, Flynn, deeply involved with the Moonies, has organized Rod of Iron Freedom Festivals to recruit and train militias for the civil war they foresee.

The conference on Capitol Hill advertises many key figures from other cults that frequently lobby Washington, including Michael Jenkins and Demian Dunkley, senior leaders in the Moonies, as well as Greg Locke, a controversial non-denominational pastor who drew national attention several years ago for hosting book burnings at his church.

In researching this group, I discovered that AllatRa had produced an eight-hour documentary, complete with AI-generated voices and 3D-modeled figures, which names me specifically as part of what they claim is a vast anti-cult conspiracy against humanity.

According to AllatRa’s propaganda mouthpiece, my book The Cult of Trump was written not as a legitimate analysis of authoritarian influence tactics, but as part of a deliberate effort to “dehumanize” Trump supporters, making it psychologically easier for non-supporters to take up arms against them eventually. Of course, this is nonsense. I say the opposite, that good people can be deceived and have their minds hacked.

The documentary disturbingly frames my work and that of my colleagues Dave Troy and Alex Alvarová as nothing less than “terroristic attacks” designed to divide Americans and foment civil war, allegedly employing “Nazi techniques” in the process of bringing about the “Fourth Reich.”

This disinformation technique is known as diversion and projection. It is one of the many techniques Trump uses regularly. He lies. He accuses his opponents of lying. He is involved in trafficking and claims the Democrats are the traffickers. He accused Biden and his son of profiting from the presidency. However, one need only look at his deeply corrupt use of power to make fortunes for himself and his family.

I’ll note the irony here. I’m Jewish. The accusation that I’m deploying Nazi methodology for the purposes of stoking a future resurgence of Nazism is both absurd and deeply offensive. It is also characteristic of the kind of propaganda that Russian influence operations specialize in. Accuse your critics of precisely what you are doing.

To drive home their message, the production even deploys a disturbing 3-D AI-generated figure of George Washington, presumably to garner “authority credibility” with patriotic Americans.

What strikes me most is the sophistication and scale of this response. This is an organized, well-resourced operation that produces resource-heavy propaganda and targets specific critics by name.

AllatRa International Public Movement represents a new breed of transnational cult, one that wraps Russian ideology in climate activism, utilizes troll farms to spread disinformation, and is presently attempting to penetrate institutions from the Vatican to Capitol Hill.

Online, the organization operates through its “Creative Society” front, disseminating pseudoscientific doomsday predictions, while its TikTok network has garnered nearly 2 billion views across 275 accounts.

The Dubious Origins of AllatRa

AllatRa was formally registered in Kyiv in July 2014, and its founders, Igor Mikhailovich Danilov and Halyna Yablochkina, both hail from the same territory that produced the White Brotherhood, an apocalyptic cult of the 1990s.

The movement was built around a series of books attributed to one Anastasia Novykh, a pseudonym that investigators believe masks the identity of Yablochkina, the cofounder who holds the copyright to the works.

Many view AllatRa as a continuation of the White Brotherhood project, noting that both share apocalyptic themes and utilize similar propaganda methods. While direct documentation linking the movements remains somewhat elusive, the geographic and ideological parallels have drawn scrutiny from Ukrainian religious scholars.

Notably, Konstantyn Moskalyuk of the Kyiv Theological Academy published a 2016 paper identifying leader Danilov as a “guru” and “prophet”–like figure. His paper also showed that AllatRa had proselytized in public schools and that the cult literature modeled heroes after Putin, presenting protagonists as pro-Russia savior figures battling the West.

The Ukrainian Secret Service Investigation

In 2023, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the National Police conducted 74 searches across 20 AllatRa locations, declaring that the operation had blocked “activities operating in favor of the Russian special services.”

Notably, evidence seized during the raids includes propaganda literature by Russian authors, portraits of Vladimir Putin, Russian currency, weapons, and explosives. Books from the “Project Russia” series by Yuri Shalyganov (pro-Putin and anti-democracy texts) were also seized.

Most disturbingly, Ukrainian authorities reported intercepting communications in which AllatRa leaders discussed “the need for missile strikes on civilians and objects in the west of Ukraine to break the resistance of Ukrainians.”

Co-founder Danilov received an arrest warrant in December 2023 and was placed on the international wanted list. Ukrainian court documents allege he “began undermining Ukraine’s statehood and promoting Russian propaganda as early as 2002.”

Creative Society –The Main Front Group

Creative Society, launched in 2019, serves as the movement’s “scientific” recruitment operation, designed to attract volunteers and academics under the guise of climate activism.

Understanding how Creative Society operates is crucial to understanding the underlying mechanisms behind AllatRa’s global expansion.

Olga Schmidt, president of Creative Society USA, speaking at an AllatRa conference, described the group as “non-political” and “non-religious,” and presented it as an independent project that focuses on the climate crisis. However, Creative Society openly describes a staged plan for global transformation that moves from recruitment to political power.

Stage one involves “informing” the planet of their mission, which they claim to be doing now.

Stage two consists of the formation of political parties in different countries, coordinated and controlled by a “central committee.”

Finally, stage three describes the adoption of a “creative” model by all of humanity, which they claim is necessary for humankind’s survival.

The plan explicitly states that politics should aim for the “speedy unification of the entire human family.”

Despite any claimed scientific credentials, AllatRa’s Creative Society’s climate messaging diverges fundamentally from scientific consensus. Creative Society bases a significant portion of its efforts on spreading the message that climate change is driven by geological factors, rather than human activity.

Essentially, what this means is that AllatRa and Creative Society incorrectly state that warming oceans can no longer “cool the Earth’s core,” leading to increased seismic activity that will rupture the Mariana Trench, causing “massive explosion, and… loss of the magnetic field” by 2036.

Howard Diamond, Climate Science Program Manager at NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory, notes that the theory is “ridiculous”, pointing out that oceans “do not interact with the mantle as described.” And so, this claim lacks a basis in reality and can be correctly viewed as a cultic doomsday prediction based on pseudoscience and fearmongering.

Interestingly, Czech sociologist Vojtěch Pecka, who specializes in climate disinformation, identified Creative Society’s disinformation strategy as unusual. Most climate disinformation tends to downplay the risk of a climate crisis. Meanwhile, Creative Society is alarmist and hysterical, stoking legitimate anxiety about a real problem, while offering false explanations and solutions.

Notably, Allatra is in deep collaboration with the Moonies cult. I escaped that cult in 1976 following a near-fatal van crash due to sleep deprivation and then a deprogramming.

I interviewed author David Lipsky about his book, The Parrot and the Igloo, which explores climate science denial. He states that the Moonies newspaper foundation, The Washington Times, has been the largest proponent of climate science denial for decades. Period.

The Network of Information Control

This front group, Creative Society, employs a massive disinformation and recruitment network.

The Firehose of Falsehoods investigation, a collaboration among Central and Eastern European newsrooms, has documented the scale of Creative Society’s social media operation.

The accounts operate across multiple languages, including Russian, English, Slovak, Hungarian, Spanish, and many others, each promoting the same apocalyptic messaging.

Operating with an army of volunteers, members contribute unpaid labor in areas such as recruitment, content creation, dubbing videos, translation, and outreach.

Despite claiming to be entirely run by selfless, unpaid volunteers, Creative Society has promised substantial incentives to members, including millions of dollars, presumably to be paid out once the Creative Society model is implemented globally.

Notably, this dynamic represents a new cult element. Volunteers labor for free in the present, in exchange for promises of future rewards contingent on the organization’s success.

While many cults leverage digital media as propaganda, AllatRa represents a new evolution in online disinformation tactics. These tactics are defined by industrial-scale production powered by automation and AI.

Independent reporting, including the Czech investigation by Seznam Zprávy, reveals that AllatRa operates a centralized media pipeline equipped with automated voiceover systems, pre-fabricated video templates, and multilingual content libraries, allowing the same narrative to be replicated across continents within hours.

Internal databases supply scripts, graphics, and ideological materials that volunteers are instructed to assemble and distribute, giving the illusion of a worldwide, spontaneous movement while tightly controlling message consistency.

The network is reinforced by Russian-language Telegram channels that train members in the use of these tools, as well as platform-specific strategies to maximize reach on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

Taken together, this architecture functions not as a volunteer media collective but as a coordinated psychological-operations system engineered for scale, emotional impact, and global narrative saturation.

The Dehumanization of Critics

Perhaps most disturbing is how leader Igor Danilov characterizes those who oppose the movement. In videos, he explicitly states,

“Only an animal can oppose, not a human being. We must secure such a beast. It cannot have the rights and status of a human being, but of ‘non-humans’ and traitors. If man opposes the Creative Society, he will lose the status of man forever. Only then will everything be right.”

This rhetoric echoes the dehumanizing language used by authoritarian movements throughout history. It creates the same distinct in-group/out-group cult mentality that makes members resistant to criticism, avoid critical thinking, and capable of atrocity towards outsiders.

The movement’s treatment of outside critics further illustrates how this dehumanizing ideology is operationalized. When Czech cult-researcher Jakub Jahl published critical analyses of AllatRa, the organization and its affiliated media channels launched a coordinated smear campaign portraying him as a sexual predator—claims police later dismissed as “incredible and fantastical.”

A Czech court ultimately ordered the removal of AllatRa’s defamatory video, effectively vindicating Jahl and exposing the fabrication. This episode demonstrates how the group weaponizes disinformation not only to shape public perception but to destroy the perceived humanity of any opponent, reinforcing the idea that critics are not merely wrong but morally contaminated and deserving of punishment.

Such retaliatory tactics are characteristic of authoritarian cults, whereby dissent is met not with debate but with erasure, humiliation, and fictional criminality. In this way, the movement’s abstract rhetoric about “non-humans” becomes a real-world strategy for silencing scrutiny and protecting its ideological control.

Further, these tactics demonstrate psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton’s final criterion for thought reform (brainwashing), The Dispensing of Existence, where a cult group claims authority to decide what the “right” way to exist is, and any other is essentially non-human. So, when you strip away the supposed activist claims of climate messaging and fulfilling volunteer work, Creative Society serves as a front group and radicalization funnel.

Essentially, the Creative Society and AllatRa, more broadly, are AI-assisted disinformation operations that use government agencies and the Vatican to create the appearance of mainstream acceptance.

By blending active lobbying with seemingly pro-science views, they operate with a carefully maintained veneer of respectability while extracting unpaid labor and unleashing fictitious attacks on those who report on their actions.

Foreign Agent Lobbyists and U.S. Political Infiltration Attempts

In 2024, in the United States, Allen Egon Cholakian registered as a foreign agent with the Department of Justice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on behalf of AllatRa, paying an annual fee of $8,000 and stating a PR budget of $150,000. My company, Freedom of Mind Resource Center Inc., is incorporated in Massachusetts.

Speaking at a conference in Prague, Cholakian claimed that he planned to lobby for the establishment of AllatRa’s international presence and, perhaps ironically, to work on combating “anti-cult” activities within the U.S. Congress.

At first glance, Cholakian’s credentials seem impressive.

Harvard graduate, former work experience with CERN, NASA, and MIT, and service under four U.S. presidents. His Academia.edu profile would have you believe he is a visiting researcher at Harvard.

However, journalists have been unable to verify many of these claims, and any information they can verify appears inflated or misrepresented. Is it possible he may have associations with these institutions? Most certainly. However, many journalists are left scratching their heads to figure out precisely what those associations are.

AllatRa also leverages media personalities with political connections—such as Robby Wells, a minor presidential candidate, and Pastor Mark Burns, a religious leader with access to high-level Republican figures—to launder credibility into their presence in American public life.

By featuring such individuals in interviews, panels, and promotional content, Creative Society creates the appearance of political legitimacy and bipartisan engagement, even when such legitimacy does not exist.

These appearances are designed to enhance their perceived influence, signaling to potential recruits that the movement operates within established democratic structures while simultaneously establishing connections with lawmakers, churches, and community groups.

This method of political infiltration mirrors techniques used by other transnational influence operations, where soft cultural, religious, or environmental narratives are deployed as low-friction entry points.

Together, these tactics reveal that AllatRa’s American outreach is neither incidental nor benign. Instead, it is a structured attempt to normalize the movement within the U.S. political environment and secure footholds that can be utilized as opportunities arise.

The AllatRa Paradox

The paradox of AllatRa’s legal status in both Ukraine and Russia is somewhat baffling at first glance.

AllatRa is simultaneously apparently banned in Russia as “extremist” and “pro-Ukrainian” (according to Russian sources) and ousted in Ukraine as pro-Russian, conspiratorial, and having engaged in criminal activities.

The timeline tells a curious story. Russia banned AllatRa in August 2023, approximately three months before Ukraine’s sting operation against AllatRa.

If AllatRa were genuinely a Russian influence operation (as Ukraine states), why would Russia strike first? The answer likely lies in the murky intersection of Russian Orthodox Church politics, intelligence tradecraft, and the strategic value of manufactured confusion.

The apparent contradiction may actually reveal how hybrid warfare operations create strategic ambiguity, though the evidence remains circumstantial.

Russia Moved First, But Ukraine Knew Earlier

Russia’s prosecution and apparent banning of AllatRa proceeded in two stages. First, in 2023, AllatRa was declared “undesirable,” a designation that requires no formal court ruling.

The claim was that AllatRa members were allegedly receiving “instructions” from Ukrainian leaders to discredit Russian authorities. By June 2025, the Russian Supreme Court elevated the “undesirable” designation to “extremist organization” status.

Ukraine’s enforcement came later, with raids on AllatRa conducted across the country. However, Ukrainian authorities had flagged AllatRa years earlier, when in 2018, a Ukrainian Security Service National Academy monograph devoted an entire chapter to AllatRa as a “project of total brainwashing.”

This timing complicates the “Russian cover-up” theory. Russia didn’t ban AllatRa after it was exposed; it banned AllatRa before Ukraine took significant public action. Yet, Ukraine’s security services had documented concerns for years before taking action.

Behind the Russian Ban

The Russian ban traces back to RACIRS (Russian Association of Centers for Religious and Sect Studies), a network of anti-cult organizations operating under Russian Orthodox Church supervision, which notably represents a fusion of church and state interests.

According to AllatRa’s own account (which should be viewed with appropriate skepticism), RACIRS began a “large-scale discrediting campaign” against them in 2015. According to AllatRa’s claims, seven former volunteers are currently imprisoned in Russian jails.

Could Russia deliberately ban an organization it controls as strategic cover? Historical precedent exists but is not conclusive. Operation Trust remains the template for Russian deception operations. The Soviets created a fake anti-Bolshevik organization that appeared to be persecuted by the state. Could it be done with AllatRa? Perhaps. However, evidence remains circumstantial.

Being banned by Russia does confer a contrarious legitimacy. For an organization accused of pro-Russian sympathies, a Russian ban is the perfect rhetorical defense. AllatRa can now claim persecution from both sides, positioning itself as a neutral victim of geopolitical conflict rather than a participant in it.

Resolving the Paradox

There are a few key points to consider.

Both AllatRa founders, Igor Danilov and Halyna Yablochkina, are natives of the Donetsk region in Ukraine, now under Russian occupation. The organization’s leadership now operates from abroad, with one on the run from an international arrest warrant.

The foundational literature and leanings of the founders are overwhelmingly pro-Russia and pro-Putin, mixed with pseudoscience.

And finally, the group engages in the widespread spread of disinformation, using powerful AI tools and lobbying abroad under false credentials.

The first possibility is that Russia’s ban originated from RACIRS and the Orthodox Church’s anti-cult activism, while Ukraine simultaneously responded to genuine security concerns documented since 2018. This scenario means both countries banned a manipulative organization for legitimate reasons, though each emphasized different aspects.

AllatRa may hold a genuinely ambiguous position. Perhaps its Russian-controlled Donetsk origins and ideological leanings made it suspicious to Ukraine. Meanwhile, its operation from Ukrainian territory made it suspicious to Russia.

Another possibility is that AllatRa served Russian interests by undermining Ukrainian resistance, but it became a liability once it came under scrutiny. In this scenario, Russia banned it to create confusion, enable deniability, and allow the organization to claim persecution. The RACIRS campaign provided institutional cover for a decision made elsewhere.

Regardless, being banned by both Russia and Ukraine may be an optimal strategic position for an entity seeking to operate in the West while avoiding accountability.

If we take a broader perspective on the situation, what narratives did AllatRa actually promote?

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) documented wiretapped conversations of leaders discussing missile strikes on Ukraine at the start of the invasion, and raids found weapons, portraits of Putin, and books idealizing the Soviet Union.

The substantive evidence of AllatRa’s actual messaging and core literature points in one direction. The paradox may be less paradoxical than it appears.

A Sophisticated Hybrid Threat

AllatRa represents a concerning fusion of cult and disinformation operation. What began as a pseudo-religious pro-Soviet Union movement has developed into a transnational disinformation operation, while its leader faces treason charges and an international arrest warrant.

Banned in both Russia and Ukraine, each country accuses the other of serving its own interests, creating useful ambiguity with the cult’s dual prohibition. Meanwhile, Cholakian’s disputed credentials haven’t prevented him from registering as a foreign agent and lobbying Congress on AllatRa’s behalf.

In all, AllatRa demonstrates how cults can function as vectors for disinformation while maintaining plausible deniability, as the movement continues to operate.

As Creative Society expands its recruitment under the guise of climate activism, the gap between its apocalyptic predictions and its documented service to Russian geopolitical interests demands continued investigation.

And so, we all must ask the following: What exactly is a foreign agent doing in the United States, registered to AllatRa, and funded generously by a pro-Russian disinformation machine?

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Resources and Further Reading

The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control by Steven Hassan, PhD

Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best-Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults by Steven Hassan, PhD

Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Thoughts & Beliefs by Steven Hassan, PhD

Understanding Cults: The Official Workbook by Steven Hassan, PhD (companion to the 9 + hour CME, CE course for clinicians and everyone)

Unmasking Climate Denial: How Cult Tactics Fuel Disinformation with David Lipsky

Eight Criteria of Thought Reform (Brainwashing, Mind Control) with Dr. Robert Jay Lifton

The Hidden Influence of Occult Beliefs on World Politics

Russia, Trump, Propaganda and Disinformation: Discussion With Investigative Journalist and Analyst Kseniya Kirillova

Russian Influence on Trump and World Politics: American Kompromat

Trump and the KGB

AllatRa’s Persecution of Jakub Jahl

The sect has created a new tool more powerful than the legendary troll farm (CZ)

Even the Islamic State did not have such a tool, says an expert about the sect from Ukraine (Seznam Zprávy, CZ)

Ukrainian court blocks money from pro-Russian sect. It is now most active in the Czech Republic (Seznam Zprávy, CZ)

Putin (Nomo) in the books of Anastasia Novykh (Iryna Kremenovskaya, UA)

“Professor” and “Academician” Igor Danilov (AllatRa) (Iryna Kremenovskaya, UA)

Unravelling AllatRa’s Operations: Use of Offshore Companies in Cyprus, Connections to Russia (Slidstvo, UA)