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The court document alleges that the commentators exacted a huge payout in negotiations, with three of the biggest stars getting paid $8.7m.
According to the indictment, the Russian scheme directed a founder of the media company to recruit two conservative influencers by offering them $2m a year.
The indictment says that one of the commentators responded that "it would need to be closer to 5 million yearly for him to be interested", and the other said "it would take 100k per weekly episode to make it worth his while".
The first influencer allegedly eventually agreed to make four videos per month for $400,000, and the other, according to the indictment, allegedly agreed to be paid $100,000 per video.
To close the negotiations, the Russians allegedly fabricated a Hungarian businessman named "Eduard Grigoriann" as a key investor. They went so far as to create a fake CV for the false identity, according to the court documents, and held phone calls with an agent posing as him.
The indictment cites multiple instances in which the platform's employees had their own suspicions about the arrangement they found themselves in.
Ms Afanasyeva is said to have shared a video to be posted made by a well-known political commentator visiting a grocery store in Russia. Media outlets have identified this alleged commentator as Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News star, who visited Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin.
He uses Russia's store prices to opine on US inflation and cost-of-living issues. There is no suggestion he was aware of the alleged plot.
According to the indictment, a producer privately messaged one of the company's founders complaining that "they want me to post this" but added that "it just feels like overt shilling".
The producer is said to have ultimately put the video out at the founder's direction.
At another point, Ms Afanasyeva allegedly directed one of the founders to get "one of our creators" to "record something about (the) Moscow terror attack" in an effort to link it to Ukraine and the United States, despite the Islamic State claiming responsibility.
The indictment suggests that the commentators ultimately fulfilled her requests, but Ms Afanasyeva is said to have grown annoyed multiple times when she did not think they were promoting the company's videos enough.
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