John Mark Dougan (born December 15, 1976, in Wilmington, Delaware, United States) is a former American police officer and U.S. Marine, who sought political asylum in Russia in 2016, and was awarded the Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" II class. Western media and fact-checking organizations have labeled him a "conspiracy theorist" and "propagandist," while he presented himself as a "Western expert" during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. In 2024, NewsGuard described him as a "Kremlin disinformation impresario" with a "talent for global online mischief" and a "professional operative." In January 2025, NewsGuard named Dougan "Disinformer of the Year 2024" for his role in large-scale Russian disinformation campaigns. In 2025, he was added to the European Union sanctions list as a participant in pro-Kremlin digital information operations aimed at "influencing elections, discrediting political figures, and manipulating public discourse in Western countries." Dougan resides in Moscow. According to NewsGuard, the FBI described him as a "Russian operative who specialized in conducting some of the most elaborate Russian information campaigns." Dougan maintains that he is an independent journalist and anti-corruption activist. == Biography == Dougan served in law enforcement from 2003. In 2009, he left police work and entered private consulting. The FBI alleged that he hacked and publicly released information on 12,000 FBI agents and police officers; Dougan has disputed these characterizations. In April 2016, he flew to Moscow and was granted political asylum. For several years, Dougan ran a website criticizing Sheriff Ric Bradshaw of Palm Beach County, Florida. In 2025, he was awarded the Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" II class. The certificate states the award was granted "by decree of the President of the Russian Federation" with the designation "ss" (sovershenno sekretno, "top secret"), indicating the classified status of the corresponding decree. Several commentators have described Dougan's award as a rare instance of this state decoration being conferred on a foreign citizen, linking it to his active participation in information operations on behalf of Russia. === Conflict with Sheriff Ric Bradshaw === In 2009, John Mark Dougan was fired from the Windham police department on charges that were later found to be false. Dougan, who had reported misconduct within the police force, faced accusations of sexual harassment, which were ultimately dismissed by the Maine Human Rights Commission (MHRC]). The MHRC found the termination to be unwarranted, noting Dougan's prior reports on the safety officer's skills and the accuser's professional misconduct. In 2011, Dougan successfully filed a federal lawsuit against the Town of Windham (Case No. 2:11-cv-00214), vindicating his actions as a whistleblower. The original complainant later sued the Town of Windham, alleging harassment from colleagues in retaliation for her initial accusations against Dougan, claiming that no one wanted to work with her and that she was harassed. The Town of Windham settled the case out of court, with a condition that she surrender her police credentials. John Mark Dougan founded his website PBSOtalk.org in 2009. Anyone could anonymously post information about corruption and abuse of power by police officers. In 2012, he obtained information and evidence that the county sheriff was using taxpayer money to attract donors for his electoral campaign and for entertainment expenses (specifically, $870 spent by Bradshaw on dinners). After the Florida Ethics Commission reviewed the complaint filed against Bradshaw, he was cleared on the grounds that "he did not know his actions constituted a violation of the law." Shortly after, the chief deputy of Palm Beach County filed a lawsuit against Dougan. However, the commission found such actions to be "incompatible with the proper discharge of the sheriff's duties." Shortly after the Ethics Commission review, and following an unsuccessful attempt to buy the PBSOtalk.com website, Sheriff Bradshaw filed a complaint against Dougan. The complaint concerned an email blast sent the day before the November 2012 elections to Palm Beach County's voter roll from the server BurtAaronson.com, which belonged to Dougan. The email claimed that BurtAaronson.com no longer supported Sheriff Bradshaw as a candidate and instead endorsed his electoral rival. The real Burt Aaronson, a county commissioner, insisted he had no knowledge of the email blast. He accused Dougan of identity theft and attempted to have him arrested. The Palm Beach County State Attorney's office determined that since Dougan owned the website, he had every right to use it, but called the email blast "provocative behavior." They further clarified that laws do not change in the "anything-goes expanses of the internet." In 2015, he flirted over the phone with a former investigator named Kenneth Mark Lewis who worked for Sheriff Bradshaw in Palm Beach County, posing as a woman named "Jessica" using voice-changing software. Dougan recorded all phone conversations with Lewis, but to broadcast the audio recordings he had to conceal his identity, as he had committed a crime. This gave birth to the hacker persona BadVolf, inspired by Lewis's discussion of a Russian cybercriminal group. The recordings revealed targeted investigations and harassment of the sheriff's political enemies, including Dougan and people who spoke critically of the sheriff. The FBI, together with Palm Beach County police, raided Dougan's home in connection with the release of these audio files, believing they had been intercepted. Another reason for the raid, cited in the warrant, was suspected hacking and the posting of thousands of names, addresses, and phone numbers of police officers, judges, and FBI agents. According to Dougan himself, this was merely a pretext to seize his computers in an attempt to identify his sources and shut down his website. In 2017, after Dougan had already left the United States, the Palm Beach County prosecutor's office charged him with 21 felony counts of extortion and wiretapping. The wiretapping charges stemmed from the recorded phone conversations with Detective Kenneth Mark Lewis (the so-called "Jessica calls"). In these recordings, Lewis admitted to conducting targeted investigations and harassment of the sheriff's political opponents, stating: "Whenever we have a bad contractor or a person who attacks one of our judges or the sheriff or the state attorney, that's one of the things I do, I start picking their life apart." Lewis also revealed that the FBI had been acting in collusion with the sheriff's office against Dougan. The publication of these recordings caused serious embarrassment for both the county's law enforcement and the FBI, which, according to Dougan and a number of observers, was the primary reason for the aggressive criminal prosecution. === Emigration from the United States === Dougan's connection to Russia began forming long before he fled the United States in 2016. He says he first visited Russia in 2013, following a Facebook message from a Russian woman who expressed interest in his work developing PBX systems (private telephone networks used within companies). According to The Daily Beast, Dougan's first visit to Russia occurred in February 2013, as captured in a photograph of Dougan with Pavel Borodin, which Dougan posted on Facebook. The details of their meeting are unclear, but Dougan stated that Borodin asked him to create "a charitable fundraising website for all charities in Russia." After the raid on his home on March 14, 2016, Dougan decided to leave. He took a friend's car and, wearing a wig, leaving behind his ex-wife and two children, headed for the Canadian border. Dougan chartered a plane and flew to Canada without going through U.S. customs. From Toronto, Dougan flew to Istanbul, where he transferred to a flight to Moscow. John became the fourth American to receive citizenship through political asylum in Russia. An anonymous source told reporter José Lambiet of the newspaper Gossip Extra that the provider GoDaddy shut down Dougan's website under pressure from law enforcement. The website was moved to Russian hosting. In 2018, Dougan published a book about BadVolf, in which he described his involvement in the Democratic Party email leak and the Hillary Clinton campaign leak in 2016. Dougan identified Seth Rich — a 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer killed in a shooting on Washington Street in July 2016 — as his source, stating that meetings between the two took place prior to Dougan's departure from the United States. The FBI was aware of the claimed connection. His book, as well as a film about him, was promoted by the Russian television channel RT. As of 2022, John Dougan was living in Moscow. The former police officer received temporary asylum status in February 2017, and in December 2018 it became permanent. Dougan received citizenship from President Putin in 2023. === Russian invasion of Ukraine === After the start of the war in Ukraine, Dougan reported on the conflict from a pro-Russian perspective, appearing in the role of a "Western expert" and "Western journalist." Western media and fact-checkers characterized his reporting as disinformation. Dougan describes himself as an independent journalist presenting perspectives excluded from Western mainstream coverage. Notably, a number of Dougan's claims regarding corruption within the Ukrainian government — including allegations about Defense Minister Rustem Umerov's undisclosed real estate in the United States and financial misconduct in the inner circle of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — were subsequently corroborated by independent Ukrainian anti-corruption organizations and international media investigations (see below). Dougan drew attention to the existence of Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory, claiming t