Federal authorities are targeting a Russian-backed disinformation campaign aimed at influencing the 2024 election.

Federal authorities in Philadelphia on Wednesday announced the takedown of a large-scale, Russian-backed disinformation network that targeted voters in Pennsylvania and five other key battleground states ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The network — colloquially known as “Doppelganger” and which prosecutors say was run by a high-ranking associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin — aimed to deceive Americans from key demographic groups into believing that the Kremlin propaganda it spread online was produced by legitimate U.S. news organizations.

The campaign also sought to enlist the facilitate of unwitting influencers in America and elsewhere to spread disinformation, sow discord on social media and support the campaign of former President Donald Trump, whom supporters viewed as more sympathetic to Russia’s interests.

The halt to the initiative — which involved the seizure of more than 30 internet domains by agents in the FBI’s Philadelphia field office — was just one of a series of sweeping steps President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday to push back against Russian interference efforts ahead of the November election.

Collectively, these were the most significant public responses to date by U.S. authorities to Russia’s alleged attempts to undermine the integrity of the election.

“Protecting our democratic processes from foreign, malign influence is paramount to ensuring the public trust,” U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said in a statement detailing the Doppelganger seizures.

In Washington, the Treasury Department announced up-to-date sanctions against a Russian nonprofit organization linked to the Doppelganger network, and Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed indictment against two Russian employees of state broadcaster RTwho, according to him, paid a Tennessee company to distribute nearly 2,000 English-language films supporting the Kremlin’s interests.

Prosecutors said the defendants — Kostyantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — used pseudonyms and the company involved in the case did not know it was being used by Russian conspirators.

The court documents in this case and the Doppelganger takeovers did not explicitly name any beneficiary of the disinformation campaign, nor were there any allegations that anyone in the campaign was aware of or involved in it.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit the free exchange of ideas in our country to covertly advance its own propaganda agenda,” Garland said in a statement Wednesday.

“The investigation is ongoing,” he added.

For months, intelligence agencies have warned that Russia remains a primary threat to the integrity of the 2024 election — despite recent headlines about efforts by other foreign governments to influence the vote.

Last month, federal authorities accused Iran of hacking into the Trump campaign’s system and attempting to compromise the security of the Biden campaign and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Authorities have also raised alarm about threats from China, which has been accused of maintaining a extensive network of social media accounts aimed at targeting American voters.

But since the United States was unprepared for the 2016 presidential election because of Russia’s sophisticated social media campaign to influence voters (which included phony Trump rallies in Pennsylvania and other key battleground states), U.S. intelligence efforts have focused on Russia as a priority.

» READ MORE: ‘Paint Philadelphia Red’: How Russian Trolls Tried to Influence the 2016 Pennsylvania Vote

The FBI’s statement was released on Wednesday in federal court in Philadelphia, outlined the Doppelganger scheme, drawing on reams of planning documents and meeting notes from Kremlin officials as they crafted their 2024 strategy. All references in the Russian documents to specific candidates or American political parties were redacted.

“The conspirators targeted citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania… in order to influence the electorate in this and other counties,” the statement reads.

According to court documents, the effort has been overseen since at least 2022 by Sergei Kiriyenko, a former Russian prime minister and Putin’s first deputy chief of staff. He and several entities named in the court documents have already been subject to U.S. sanctions for their roles in spreading disinformation.

Their primary goal, agents say, was to pass off provocative or false news — supporting Russian interests or pro-Trump — as works produced by legitimate U.S. media outlets.

Gossip creators registered domain names similar to those of well-known media brands — such as washingtonpost.pm and foxnews.cx — and published articles under the names of real journalists who worked for them.

For example, investigators say one article posted on the phony Washington Post website — titled “White House Misjudged: Conflict with Ukraine Strengthens Russia” — was intended to dampen public sentiment toward Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

“It’s time for our leaders to recognize that continuing to support Ukraine is a mistake,” the article said. “It was a waste of lives and money. … For the good of all involved in the conflict, the Biden administration should simply reach a peace agreement and move on.”

The Doppelganger network also focused on making these stories go viral by setting up phony social media accounts posing as U.S. citizens and posting links to their propaganda in the comments of other social media posts.

“The purpose of the campaign,” according to one Russian planning document cited in an FBI affidavit released Wednesday, “is to secure Russia’s preferred election outcome.”

In another planning document, Doppelganger supporters outlined a plan they called “The Good Old USA Project” to target voters from specific demographic groups in the U.S. with phony news and doctored social media posts.

According to Kremlin planning documents attached to Wednesday’s filings, they included Latinos, American Jews, conservatives, and “the American gaming community, Reddit users, and imageboards like 4chan (the so-called “backbone” of right-wing trends in the American segment of the internet).”

“For this work to be effective,” they warned, “you have to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information. At the same time, you have to constantly repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you or show you.”