Russian operatives in US try to generate propaganda support

 AP:

A Russian operative under the supervision of one of the Kremlin's main intelligence services has been charged with recruiting political groups in the United States to advance pro-Russia propaganda, including during the invasion of Ukraine, the Justice Department said Friday.

The indictment of Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov reflects what U.S. officials say are ongoing Russian government efforts to meddle in the American political process, to shape public opinion and to sow discord and dissent on hot-button social issues.

In this case, the authorities say, Ionov for roughly the last decade recruited political groups in Florida, Georgia and California and directed them to spread pro-Russia talking points. He also paid for group members to attend government-funded conferences in Russia, as well as a protest in the U.S. against social media efforts to suppress online support for Moscow's Ukraine invasion, the indictment says.

“As court documents show, Ionov allegedly orchestrated a brazen influence campaign, turning U.S. political groups and U.S. citizens into instruments of the Russian government,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said in a statement.

Ionov worked under the supervision of the Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB — which conducts domestic intelligence and counterintelligence activities — and reported his activities back to contacts in the agency, prosecutors say. He is the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, a Moscow-based group that prosecutors say is funded by the Russian government and that advocates for a fully sovereign Russia.

The indictment, in federal court in Tampa, charges him with conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
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There is more.

 I suspect the Russians are concerned about the sanction regime the US and its allies have imposed on them because of Putin's war in Ukraine and his threat against other European countries.

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