ASV charged by federal authorities of Russia citizens in a years-long effort to influence US politics using American organizations in Florida, Georgia and California to fuel division and spread pro-Russian propaganda.
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Alexander Ionov, who lives in Moscow, cooperated with Russian officials for nearly nine years to finance and operate U.S. organizations, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday in Florida. The document does not name these organizations, but it is said that Ionov also regularly advised the campaigns of two political candidates in Florida in 2017 and 2019.
Ionov is accused of orchestrating “a brazen influence campaign turning US political groups and US citizens into tools of the Russian government,” Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a written statement.
The indictment says that in 2016, Ionov helped a group in Florida organize demonstrations in four cities to support the “Petition on the Crime of Genocide Against African Americans in the United States”, which the group had previously submitted to the UN at the suggestion of Ionov.
The group was not named in the indictment, but US officials identified it as the Juhuru Movement, led by the African People’s Socialist Party. On Friday, the movement’s office in Florida was raided, after which the movement’s representative announced at a press conference, among other things, that the group supports Russia.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent David Walker said at a press conference on Friday that the case includes “some of the most egregious and flagrant violations we’ve seen by the Russian government to destabilize and undermine trust in American democracy. (..) Russian intelligence threats goes on and on and on.”
He said that this indictment, in which Ionov is the only accused, is only the first step.
According to information available to US authorities, Ionov founded and leads the Russian anti-globalization movement, which is funded by the Russian government. He used this organization to finance and influence American political groups and to pass on instructions from the Russian Federal Security Service to them.
The US authorities believe that in 2015 Ionov paid for the trip of the leader of a Florida organization to Moscow, and for the next seven years Ionov controlled and directed the leaders of this organization.
At least one of the Americans with whom Ionov has had dealings has realized that Ionov is supported and controlled by the Russian government, but has concluded that this is not interfering with them.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of this year, Ionov told his Russian Federal Security Service contacts that he had ordered a group in St. Petersburg, Florida to support Russia in the information war launched by the United States and Europe.
Ionov is also accused of leading and controlling a political organization in California that advocates the state’s secession from the United States. In 2018, Ionov financially supported the protests organized by this organization near the seat of the California government in Sacramento and tried to convince the leader of the organization to storm the governor’s office. After the protests, Ionov wrote to an agent of the Russian Federal Security Service that he had asked for riots, indicating that they had now been organized.
Ionov is charged with conspiracy to have US citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government.
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