Russian National Charged With Meddling In US Politics

Prosecutors in the US have charged a Russian national for plotting to use US citizens as “illegal agents of the Russian government”.

Indications also show that Alexander Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, tried to interfere with US elections. A US Justice Department indictment says he ran the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR).

The AGMR is a body that recruited US political groups to further Russian state propaganda. However though, the Russian national has denounced all accusations against him.

The indictment says Mr. Ionov worked under the direction of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). He allegedly controlled certain unnamed political groups in Florida, Georgia, and California. If found guilty, Viktorovich could face a maximum of five years in jail.

He further took to Facebook to denounce these allegations.

“I have never met such nonsense and deception. There are no specific names of officials, there is no evidence of funding and there are no intelligible arguments,” he said.

He accused American officials of being driven crazy by the crisis in Ukraine, and asked people to open their eyes to the kind of democracy existing in America.

Mr Ionov has also told CNN he is currently in Russia. As with other Western indictments of senior Russian figures, he is likely to be tried in absentia.

The US Treasury Department announced sanctions against Mr. Ionov, the AGMR, and two other organizations allegedly controlled by him.

The two organizations are the STOP-Imperialism website and Ionov Transcontinental, a company “which has a footprint in Iran, Venezuela and Lebanon”.

Natalya Valeryevna Burlinova and her Center for Support and Development of Public Initiative Creative Diplomacy (PICREADI) also face sanctions. The US statement alleges that PICREADI is funded by the Russian state, despite claiming to be independent.

The sanctions block those organizations’ assets in the US and prohibit transactions with them.

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