Obviously they wouldn't do so under their own names, but through Macedonian troll factories, opaquely funded think tanks, Russia Today interviews, twitter bots, and so on.

I absolutely agree this is a home grown phenomenon but there is some evidence that Russia funneled money to Republicans with these beliefs through the NRA. This is just one example we happen to know about because people are looking under every rock after the 2016 election.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/timeline-of-russian-plot-to-inf...

The NRA is a great example of this; its president is Oliver North, famously involved in a plot to sell weapons to one enemy of America to illegally support a terrorist organisation in another. I'm sure such an upstanding person has America's best interests at heart. /s

Oh, that would be doing it wrong. Of course it would be presented as locally written journalism, local experts or "concerned citizens" etc.

I'm not saying it's happening, but I certainly see the potential profitability in it.