Meet the spooks, mercs and chickenhawk politicos enlisting as NAFO trolls

While fundraising for a notoriously brutal militia in Ukraine and trolling critics of the proxy war, the membership roll of “North Atlantic Fellas Organization” has filled up with NATO suits...

Read part 2 of the investigation on The Grayzone.

While fundraising for a notoriously brutal militia in Ukraine and trolling critics of the proxy war, the membership roll of “North Atlantic Fellas Organization” has filled up with NATO suits, congressional chickenhawks, neocon operatives, mercenaries and intel agents.

Read part one of Alex Rubinstein’s ongoing investigative series on NAFO, “How the pro-Ukraine NAFO troll operation crowd-funds war criminals.”

When he is not shedding performative tears over the fate of US democracy or publicly guffawing over the apparent assassination of Iranian military officials, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) has sought to define himself as a leading opponent of perceived antisemitism in Washington DC. When his colleague, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, mildly criticized of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in 2019, Kinzinger called on congressional leaders to strip her of top committee assignments.

“Anti-Semitism has no place in this Congress or this country,” Kinzinger thundered in March 2019, falsely conflating criticism of AIPAC, an Israel lobbying group, with anti-Jewish sentiment. “We must hold ourselves to a higher standard in office.”

Yet Kinzinger, who has emerged as a zealous backer of NATO’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, has apparently failed to apply the same standards to his own political allies.

Since Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine this February, Kinzinger has agitated for increased US support for the Kiev-aligned military despite widespread documentation of open neo-Nazis permeating its ranks. More revealing was Kinzinger’s public endorsement of an online harassment campaign led by “NAFO,” a pro-NATO digital troll farm co-founded by a secretive Twitter account with noted antisemitic views.

Founded in early 2022, “NAFO,” or the “North Atlantic Fellas Organization,” is an online alliance of social media accounts aimed at fortifying the digital frontline of NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine. The group has made its mark on Twitter, where NAFO members, known as “fellas,” bombard critics of the Ukrainian military with insults and memes of cartoon dogs. 

NAFO’s harassment campaigns have become so omnipresent that virtually every prominent Western media outlet, including Deutsche Welle, The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, The Economist, VICE News, has granted the operation wildly favorable coverage. The troll farm has also drawn admiration from anti-Russia hardliners in Washington DC, including from its most enthusiastic inside-the-Beltway member: Rep. Kinzinger, who publicly identifies as a “fella” in his Twitter handle while participating in coordinated dog-piles.

In part one of this investigative series, The Grayzone revealed that “NAFO” is not only a digital troll farm, but in fact a thinly-veiled fundraising campaign for the Georgian Legion, a division of foreign fighters within the Ukrainian army that stands accused of numerous war crimes. The Grayzone also established that a retired US marine named Matthew Moores created NAFO alongside Kamil Dyszewski, a Polish video game reviewer who operates under the Twitter pseudonym “Kama Kamilia.”

“I just stumbled my way through life, now into this,” Dyszewski commented in a July 2022 interview while discussing his foray into the realm of online harassment campaigns. 

“What fuels it for me is the absolute hatred and vitriol I have towards the Russians,” he explained. 

While touting his anti-Russian hostility, Dyszewski has also tweeted multiple antisemitic memes, including images which appeared to glorify Adolph Hilter and mock Jewish victims of the Holocaust. While mainstream media has neglected to mention Dyszewski’s controversial opinions in its coverage of NAFO, independent researcher and Grayzone contributor Moss Robeson has clinically documented and publicized his most inflammatory posts.

As evidence of Dyszewski’s hateful views circulated online, however, NAFO members doubled down on support for their leader. 

“Spare a kind word or a kind thought for my little brother from another mother, @Kama_Kamilia,” a NAFO fella identified as “Pete” tweeted on October 15, tagging Dyszewski’s pseudonym and Twitter handle (an apparent reference to Culture Club’s 1982 chart topper, “Karma Chameleon”). “He’s taken a hard path here, and is handling it with grace and integrity.”

Taken on its own, the message of solidarity for Dyszewski from a Twitter account boasting fewer than 6,000 followers was unremarkable. But despite “Pete’s” underwhelming reach on Twitter, his tweet caught the eye of one of NAFO’s most notable fellas.

“Nobody is making a big deal about this, but the repeated nafo comments is (sic) spreading this,” read the top reply to “Pete’s” tweet. The blatant call to ignore screenshots of Dyszewski’s antisemitic posts was issued by none other than Rep. Kinzinger from his personal, verified account.

“So, all good,” the congressman advised his fellow fella. “Move on.”

With no end to the Ukraine conflict in sight, Kinzinger is not the only DC policymaker who has opted to look the other way and continue coordinating with or boosting NAFO’s digital troll operation. In fact, as NATO’s online information war intensified alongside the physical battlefield, NAFO’s ties to Washington’s elite have only strengthened.

Finish reading part 2 of this investigation on The Grayzone and subscribe for more updates on my reporting.