WASHINGTON (AP) — A Russian agent under the supervision of one of the Kremlin’s top intelligence services has been accused of recruiting political groups in the United States to advance pro-Russian propaganda, even during the invasion of ‘Ukraine, the Department of Justice said on Friday.
The indictment of Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov reflects what US officials say are ongoing efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the US political process, to shape public opinion and to sow discord and dissent on hot social issues.
In that case, authorities say, Ionov over the past decade or so recruited political groups in Florida, Georgia and California and directed them to spread pro-Russia talking points. He also paid for members of the group to attend government-sponsored conferences in Russia, as well as a protest in the US against social media efforts to suppress online support for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the indictment says .
“As court documents show, Ionov allegedly orchestrated a brazen influence campaign, turning American political groups and American citizens into instruments of the Russian government,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, head of the Department of Justice’s national security division, in a statement.
Ionov worked under the supervision of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, which conducts domestic intelligence and counterintelligence activities, and reported his activities to agency contacts, prosecutors say . He is the founder and chairman of the Russian Anti-Globalization Movement, a Moscow-based group that prosecutors say is funded by the Russian government and advocates a fully sovereign Russia.
The indictment, in federal court in Tampa, accuses him of conspiring to have US citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Ionov is not currently in custody and appears unlikely to ever face trial in the US, but the indictment is intended to warn Americans about the extent of foreign influence operations and send a signal to Russia that the US government he is aware of his actions.
Separately on Friday, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Ionov, accusing him of efforts to “manipulate and destabilize the United States and its allies and partners.”
The indictment does not identify by name any of the organizations that Ionov recruited, but it does describe one of them as a group in St. Petersburg, Florida, whose leaders were aware that Ionov and his group were agents of a foreign government.
Prosecutors say that Ionov in 2015 ordered the group to write a petition alleging that the US had committed genocide against Africans in America, and to send it to the United Nations, the White House and change. org.
The document, titled “Petition to the United Nations on the Crime of Genocide Against Africans in the United States,” notes the history of slavery and denial of civil rights to blacks in the United States. He argues that the US government still does not “protect our health and well-being as expected under full citizenship” and inflicts “state or state-sponsored violence and terror” on us.
The petition, which is still available online, is labeled as that of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, an international black socialist organization. Representatives of the group said the FBI raided its center in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Akile Anai, who describes herself as the director of agitation and propaganda for the African People’s Socialist Party, said officers searched her car and took her cellphone and laptop on Friday in addition to attack the Uhuru house.
Anai said his organization had never received money from Ionov or any other member of the Russian intelligence service.
Members of the Uhuru movement first met Ionov in Russia when they were invited to an anti-globalization conference, and Anai said he had also been in contact with Ionov by email and also through a webinar after Russia invaded Ukraine, since “we had one side of the story about Russia and Ukraine.”
Officials alleged Friday that Ionov tried to meddle in local politics by endorsing members of the group for office. In 2017, the group ran for mayor and city council, and again in 2019 for a city council race. The candidates lost. Anai said all money received by the campaigns outside the United States was returned.
“Their premise is that these were Russian campaigns. It’s a really insulting statement,” Anai said. “It was the black community that ran the campaigns for our own self-interest. It’s an insulting idea that black people can’t do anything for ourselves.”
Prosecutors say Ionov also exercised control over a separate organization in California that promoted the state’s secession from the rest of the United States and helped finance a 2018 rally at the state capitol building. According to the indictment, he sent news about the California secession movement to one of his FSB contacts and said the officer had asked for “bother” and “here it is.”
Most recently, prosecutors say, Ionov paid for members of an unnamed Georgia group to fly from Atlanta to San Francisco to join a protest in front of a social media company in California that had put content restrictions on publications that supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The case is part of a much broader Justice Department crackdown on foreign influence operations aimed at shaping public opinion in the US. In 2018, for example, the Justice Department charged 13 Russian citizens with participating in a massive but hidden social media campaign designed to sow discord. during the 2016 presidential election won by Republican Donald Trump.
Russian government officials and state media often highlight anti-government protests in the US and other Western countries, prominently commenting on political and social discord, race riots, labor demonstrations and mass shootings. Officials contrast events in the US with what they say is a lack of such unrest in Russia.
FBI Special Agent in Charge David Walker in Tampa called the latest Russian efforts “some of the most egregious and egregious violations we’ve seen.”
“The Russian intelligence threat is continuous and unrelenting,” Walker said. “Today’s actions should serve as a deterrent.”
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Schneider reported from Orlando. Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.