A Kremlin-backed Russian operative has meddled in US politics for seven years and recently tried to undermine US support for Ukraine by recruiting local activists to spread pro-Moscow propaganda, the ministry said on Friday. of Justice.
Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, who worked with Russia’s Federal Security Service and at least three unnamed ‘Russian officials’, was charged with conspiracy to have US citizens act as unlawful agents of the Russian government from December 2014 to March 2014. this year, the agency said. .
“As court documents show, Ionov allegedly orchestrated a brazen campaign of influence, turning American political groups and American citizens into instruments of the Russian government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Security Division. National Department of Justice. The 24-page indictment against Ionov was unsealed in Tampa, Florida.
Ionov, who lives in Moscow, was not in Tampa when the grand jury indictment was made public, and there was no immediate response to the Russian government’s revelations.
Neither Ionov nor any of his alleged Russian accomplices were “duly accredited diplomatic or consular agents”, the indictment states.
Ionov, founder of a non-governmental organization called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, had previously been on the DOJ’s radar. In 2018, it was revealed that his organization raised money to help convicted Russian agent Maria Butina, who was deported to Moscow in 2019, an event mentioned in the indictment.
The DOJ said in its statement that Ionov was targeting “political groups” in Florida, Georgia and California.
He did not identify US-based groups. But shortly after Ionov’s indictment was announced, the Tampa FBI confirmed to local media that it had raided the Uhuru Movement’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida, in connection with the alleged plot.
“The Uhuru Movement is a global organization, under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party, uniting Africans as one people for liberation, social justice, self-reliance and economic development,” the group said on its website. Internet.
The DOJ did not identify the members of the three groups who “co-conspired” with Ionov, but said it was fully aware that Ionov and his organization “were agents of the Russian government”.
In May 2015, Ionov sent the “leader” of the Uhuru movement to St. Petersburg for “an all-expenses-paid trip to Russia” and for the next seven years “exercised leadership and control over senior limbs”, said the DOJ.
The Uhuru movement did not respond to requests for comment on Friday, but at an earlier press conference an Uhuru leader did not deny the group’s ties to Russia.
“We can have relationships with whoever we want to make this revolution possible,” Eritha “Akile” Cainion said after the indictment was announced, the Tampa Bay Times reported. “We support Russia.”
Four of the “unindicted co-conspirators” listed but not named in the indictment are US citizens living in St. Petersburg, while the others live in Atlanta and California. One of the California residents also has a home in Moscow.
Based on the indictment, it appears that Ionov was most active in St. Petersburg, where he allegedly tried to stir up racial resentment by asking Uhuru members to write a petition to the United Nations. “alleging that the United States had committed genocide against the people of Africa”. later be translated and distributed throughout Russia.
Ionov, according to the indictment, also encouraged Uhuru members in 2017 and 2019 to get involved in St. Petersburg local elections and campaign on the issue of “reparations” for slavery, a divisive issue in the United States. He also helped fund campaigns, the indictment says.
In California, Ionov supported an anonymous group that wants the state to secede from the United States, the indictment says. Ionov paid $500 for posters for a 2018 protest outside the state Capitol in Sacramento and encouraged attendees to “physically enter the governor’s office.”
In March, after the Russians invaded Ukraine, Ionov tried to rally Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin by participating in a videoconference organized by the “American Political Group 1”, which the FBI identified as the Uhuru organization.
During the videoconference, Ionov repeated the Kremlin’s false claims that “the Nazis were in power in Ukraine and were killing innocent people.”
Ionov, the DOJ said, also paid for members of an unnamed Georgian group to travel to California and participate in a protest outside an unnamed social media company that had imposed restrictions on posts supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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