“Every online forum, every comment section on every local site, everywhere I look, most of the commenters are trolls,” she said in an interview. “It’s like half the country is trolls.”

Savchuk, a 36-year-old single mother of two and a former employee of the Internet Research Agency, won a lawsuit against the troll farm in 2016. Since then, she has detailed the operations of her former employer in numerous publications and videos, has served as a witness in another ex-troll’s lawsuit, and has sought to get other trolls to tell their stories. She calls it “bringing them into the light.”

Savchuk has also been accused of being a shill for foreign interests, the usual counterattack the state-run media mount against whistleblowers. She has become withdrawn; she switches off her phone when reporters call; she only agreed to meet at the remote roadside cafe after weeks of cajoling.