The U.S. Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) warned a film producer featured on a Russian “hit list” for exposing atrocities against Ukrainian evangelicals that hackers affiliated with Russian intelligence targeted him in a cyber attack.
Steven Moore, founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project and executive producer of the documentary “A Faith Under Siege,” said he faces intense personal pressure for highlighting the Kremlin’s crackdown on evangelicals in occupied Ukraine.
Moore said an FBI agent recently contacted him to reveal he was the target of a phishing campaign by cyber hackers linked to Russian Intelligence Services (RIS). The campaign involved RIS actors compromising commercial messaging applications typically on cell phones.
The warning came unexpectedly. Moore said he was stepping out of a meeting in Washington, D.C. when his phone rang, displaying the Dallas FBI field office. Thinking it was a scam, he answered anyway.
An investigator told him his phone number repeatedly flagged during federal investigations into malicious actors targeting individuals on the Signal messaging app.
“She said she had been making calls for several days and so far, everyone else [targeted] had been former military,” Moore told Christian Daily International. “And it was such a big deal.”
Skeptical, Moore hung up and called the official bureau number back to verify her identity. The agent confirmed the call, noting the matter was serious enough that she would have visited his home had he not responded. The bureau provided immediate security protocols to safeguard his communications.
“The activity targets individuals of high intelligence value, such as current and former U.S. government officials, military personnel, political figures, and journalists,” warned a FBI Public Service Announcement about the hacking campaign on March 20.
“People are trying to hack me all the time and I never exactly know who they are, but I assume they are Russian,” Moore said.
Moore also realized he had been a victim of a separate “Dark Sword” spyware cyberattack.
“The Dark Sword attack is something revealed by regular precautions I take against cyber attacks,” said Moore. “It is also associated with the Russian military.“
The Kremlin labeled Moore a “foreign combatant” on a public website in 2023 due to his work documenting human rights abuses against Ukrainian Christians by occupying Russian forces. Moore, who has an extensive background as a political strategist but no military history, called the designation absurd.
“On the right is the translation from Russian,” Moore said, referring to the righthand side of the website. “I’m apparently involved in arranging armed shipments to Ukraine, and the picture they used to prove it is me in front of a truck full of toilet paper I had sent to the front near Kharkiv.”
While Moore views the Kremlin’s designation as an intimidation tactic to halt humanitarian operations, he also considers it validation.
“You’re in Ukraine and you’re working hard every day and you ask yourself, ‘Does anyone know what I’m doing? Does anyone care?’” Moore said. “And then you get this listing and think, ‘Oh wow, the Russians know what I’m doing.’ It is actually a real motivator.”
The digital threat matches a broader pattern of physical and psychological intimidation targeting Moore’s team. A Republican political consultant working with the project received a U.S. Embassy warning regarding credible threats against his life.
Furthermore, Ukrainian intelligence warned a Christian featured in the documentary that he was an active target, while drones struck the home and church of another individual involved in the film.
These escalation points forced Moore and his fiancée, Anna, to relocate and adopt strict counter-surveillance measures to mask their movements.
The security perimeter also extends to their social lives in Kyiv. Moore noted that unusual encounters with specific expatriates prompted them to largely withdraw from the local expat scene. In another instance, a hostile Russian-speaking person from Lithuania singled out and berated Moore’s fiancée at a public event in Europe.
Moore attributes the aggressive push-back to the rapid global traction of “A Faith Under Siege.” The documentary, which premiered at the Museum of the Bible in May 2025, has reached an estimated 3.2 million U.S. evangelical voters.
“All of our advertisements are essentially 30-second messages that say that Russia is torturing and hurting Christians for their faith in Ukraine,” Moore said. “Our movie’s been super successful.”
Despite the friction, Moore refuses to alter his trajectory. He is currently developing future film projects focusing on other Russian atrocities, including the forced deportation of Ukrainian children from occupied territories.
“Would Putin like to kill me? Yes. Am I on a long list of people who he’d like to kill? Yes,” Moore said. “Our job is to be visible. Our job is to tell the truth to the largest numbers of people we can find. And when you do that, that’s what makes you a target.”
