How a convicted US felon, 36, has become Putin's new mouthpiece six years after being caught smuggling cocaine in Virginia

A softly-spoken former bank clerk has stepped into the shoes of Vladimir Putin's propagandist warlord, three years after she was released from a Virginia jail for drug smuggling.

Mira Terada, 36, fled back to her native Russia in 2021 after being seized on an Interpol warrant and serving 30 months on a plea bargain.

Back home the former Houston businesswoman became a protege of Yevgeny Prigozhin who led the infamous Wagner mercenary force and appointed her head of his propaganda unit the 'Foundation for Battling Injustice (FBR)'.

He died in an apparent assassination last August after leading a failed coup against Vladimir Putin, but the Russian president seems to have taken Terada under his wing and given her a starring role in his information war against the West.

'Prison is always hard, always pain, loneliness,' she wrote on her Telegram channel last month. 'However, it is extremely important WHAT a person will do in the future with the experience gained.'

Mira Terada, 36, is leading Russia's information wars against the West less than three years after she was freed from a 30-month prison sentence in Virginia for her role in a nationwide cocaine smuggling ring 

The former bank clerk was appointed to head the 'human rights organization' founded by feared Wagner group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin

Yevgeny Prigozhin (left) was dubbed 'Putin's chef' after making his name supplying food to the Russian president. But he went on to found his feared militia and head Russia's disinformation campaigns against the West 

Previously known as Oksana Vovk, she arrived in the US in 2010 and studied at the International Language Institute in DC.

She moved to Houston, Texas, and established a company, Stylish Traveller LLC, that prosecutors believe was a front for the drug smuggling operation run by her husband Aleth Terada.

But the operation began to unravel in November 2016 when she was discovered in a car with two co-conspirators and a kilogram of cocaine concealed in the engine compartment on a road trip from Texas to Virginia.

She fled abroad but was seized on an Interpol warrant at Helsinki Airport in 2018 and deported back to the US to face charges.

She was sentenced to 30 months in June 2019 for money laundering after a plea bargain which saw the drug charges dropped.

And she has used her time in jail as a platform for her work with the Russian 'human rights' organization, lambasting the 'brutality of the American judicial system, the inhumanity of American prisons and the complete indifference of the so-called liberal American society'.

'You know how in the West, we have all kinds of foundations that explore human rights,' Darren Linvill of Clemson University told the Daily Beast.

'If you want to create a multipolar world, and your country is guilty of a long list of human rights violations, you might need to start your own foundation that explores human rights violations,' he explained.

'But, you know, only the human rights violations that everybody else is committing.'

Terada, previously known as Oksana Vovk, has become a high-profile figure on Russian TV since her release from the US  

She uses her platform as head of the 'Foundation for Battling Injustice (FBR)' to pillory US justice and amplify western human rights abuses 

Her personal Telegram account is filled with pictures of the Russian-native celebrating the beauty of her homeland 

'I saw the nightmares of the US prison hell, which are diligently hushed up by the world media: torture, bullying of prisoners, the sadism of the jailers and the cold ruthlessness of the American penitentiary system,' she said in a blog post

There was more drama in the Kremlin on Sunday as Putin fired his long-serving defense secretary Sergei Shoigu.

The 68-year-old appeared to have been rehabilitated in recent months as Russia foiled Ukraine's counter-offensive last summer after a disastrous start to its invasion.

But he was sidelined yesterday into a new role on the Russian security council, replacing long-time ex-FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev, 72, a virulently anti-Western conspiracy theorist who is also being moved to a new job. 

Prighozhin, once known 'Putin's chef' after making his money supplying food to the Kremlin became one of the world's most feared and brutal militia chiefs, typically ordering deserters to be beaten to death with sledgehammers.

But he was also a skilled propagandist and visionary of information warfare establishing the Internet Research Agency (IRA) which saturated social media with faked content designed to incite and polarize western electorates.

The IRA was dissolved in July last year after its undercover activities were exposed and Prigozhin admitted to interfering in US elections.

'I've never just been the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time,' he boasted.

'It was founded to protect the Russian information space from boorish aggressive propaganda of anti-Russian narrative from the West.'

Vladimir Putin sacked his long-serving defense secretary Sergei Shoigu (right) in a surprise move on Sunday afternoon

Linvill's colleague Patrick Warren, of the John E. Walker Department of Economics at Clemson University said that Terada's FBR is the 'Russian successor organization to Prigozhin's influence empire'.

'Putin would be a complete and utter idiot to let the network fall apart,' Linvill added.

'He needs the Prigozhin network more than ever before.'

On her X account, formerly Twitter, Terada delivers a series of pieces to camera in which she delivers a series of conspiracy theories including claims that Ukraine forcibly inseminates lesbians and that 'Western intelligence' was responsible for 9/11. 

She was handed a new high-profile role in January when she convened the first public meeting of the 'Brics Journalists Association (BJS),' designed to 'provide assistance' to reporters in Russia's key allies of Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE.

The website parrots Kremlin disinformation and employs many of Prigozhin's former operatives US officials told Daily Beast.

Reports on the website accuse Ukraine of being a 'Nazi' state and rubbished Ukrainian claims this week that it had foiled a Kremlin-backed plot to assassinate President Volodymr Zelensky.

'As expected, Moscow is accused of being behind the attempted attack, but there is no evidence that the Russians participated in the conspiracy. On the other hand, the West seems quite interested in eliminating Zelensky,' Brazilian BJS member Lucas Leiroz wrote.

'Being an 'ally' with the West proved to be a true death sentence.'

In a paper last year the Clemson researchers laid out the Russian strategy.

'The first stage is placement, the initial posting of the false information, relying on inauthentic social media accounts for this purpose,' they wrote.

'Following placement is layering, the spread of that information from its origin to more credible sources.

'Repetition of a narrative itself brings a perception of credibility, and this process has been engaged in by employing both authentic and inauthentic social media accounts.

'The final stage is integration. This is the point at which the information becomes endorsed by more credible and genuine sources and is widely disseminated by real users.'

Earlier this year Russian disinformation researchers warned that Moscow's latest initiative was a series of new 'local' news websites with names such as DC Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and the Miami Chronicle.

'This is absolutely a prelude to the kind of interference we will see in the election cycle,' Linvill told the New York Times.

'It's cheap, highly targeted and obviously effective.'

Prigozhin led some of Russia's most successful military actions in Ukraine but also founded the Internet Research Agency (IRA) which saturated social media with faked content designed to incite and polarize western electorates.

He died in a helicopter crash last August in what is thought to be an assassination ordered by Vladimir Putin after threatening to overthrow the Russian president

Terada meanwhile was handed a new high-profile role in January when she convened the first public meeting of the 'Brics Journalists Association (BJS),' designed to 'provide assistance' to reporters in Russia's key allies of Brazil, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia

Patrick Warren (left) and Darren Linvill of the John E. Walker Department of Economics at Clemson University said that Terada's FBR is the 'Russian successor organization to Prigozhin's influence empire' 

Around 1,000 people were thought to be employed by Prighozhin's 'troll farms', amplifying and recirculating stories that toed the Kremlin line.

And while Terada may not have a large audience for her websites in the West, experts fear they are likely to be the source of narratives that will permeate political discourse in election year.

'They put out a bunch of reports that not very many people ever talk about,' Linvill said.

'It's just there to look good.'