“I would like to address free people around the world to tell you that Western propaganda is lying when they say that Russia invaded Ukraine,” he said through an interpreter. His name was Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov and he described himself as a “human rights activist”. But federal authorities say he was working for the Russian government, orchestrating a years-long influence campaign to use American political groups to spread Russian propaganda and interfere in American elections. On Friday, the Justice Department revealed that it had charged Mr. Ionov with conspiring to have American citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government. Mr Ionov, 32, who lives in Moscow and is not in custody, is accused of recruiting three political groups in Florida, Georgia and California between December 2014 and March, providing them with financial support and directing them to publish Russian propaganda. On Friday, the finance ministry imposed sanctions against him. David Walker, the top agent in the FBI’s Tampa field office, called the allegations “some of the most egregious and egregious violations we’ve seen by the Russian government to destabilize and undermine trust in American democracy.” In 2017 and 2019, Mr. Ionoff supported the campaigns of two candidates for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida, where one of the American political groups is based, according to a 24-page indictment. He wrote to a Russian official in 2019 that he was “consulting weekly” with one of the campaigns, the indictment said. “Our election campaign is somewhat unique,” a Russian intelligence officer wrote to Mr. Ionov, adding: “Are we the first in history?” Mr. Ionoff later referred to the candidate, who was not named in the indictment, as “the one we’re monitoring.” In 2016, according to the indictment, Mr. Ionov paid for the St. Petersburg group to go on a four-city protest tour supporting a “Crime of Genocide Against Africans in the United States,” which the group had previously submitted to the United Nations under his guidance. “The goal is to increase complaints,” said Peter Strzok, a former top FBI counterintelligence official, of the kind of conduct Mr. Ionov is accused of. “They just want to fund rival forces. It is a means of encouraging social division at low cost. The goal is to create controversy and division.” The Russian government has a long history of trying to sow division in the US, notably during the 2016 presidential campaign. Mr Strzok said the Russians were known to plant stories featuring fringe groups in an attempt to inject disinformation into the media ecosystem. . Federal investigators described Mr. Ionov as the founder and chairman of the Russian Anti-Globalization Movement and said he was funded by the Russian government. They said he worked with at least three Russian officials and in cooperation with the FSB, a Russian intelligence agency. The indictment issued Friday did not name the US political groups, their leaders or the St. Petersburg candidates, who were identified only as Unindicted Co-conspirator 3 and Unindicted Co-conspirator 4. And Mr. Ionov is the only person who has been accused in the case. UPDATED July 31, 2022, 1:06 am ET But leaders of the St. Petersburg-based Uhuru Movement, part of the African People’s Socialist Party, said their president’s office and home were raided by federal agents on Friday morning as part of the investigation. “They handcuffed me and my wife,” the president, Omali Yeshitela, said on Facebook Live outside the team’s new headquarters in St. Louis. He said he had not taken money from the Russian government, but would not be “morally opposed” to accepting funds from Russians or “anyone else who wants to support Black struggles.” The indictment said Mr. Ionov paid for the founder and chairman of the St. Petersburg group — identified as Unindicted Co-conspirator 1 — to travel to Moscow in 2015. Upon his return, the indictment said, the chairman told emails with other group leaders that Mr. Ionov wanted the group to be an “instrument” of the Russian government, which did not “bother” us. “Yes, I have been to Russia,” Mr. Yeshitela said in his Facebook Live appearance on Friday, without saying when he went or who paid for his trip. He added that he has also been to other countries, such as South Africa and Nicaragua. In St. Petersburg, Akilé Anai of the Uhuru Movement told a press conference that federal authorities seized her car and other personal property. He called the investigation an attack on the Uhuru Movement, which has long had a presence in St. Petersburg but has had little success in local politics. “We can have relations with whoever we want,” he said, adding that the Uhuru Movement has made no secret of its support for Russia in the war in Ukraine. “We support Russia.” Ms. Anai ran for City Council in 2017 and 2019 as Eritha “Akilé” Cainion. He received about 18 percent of the vote in the 2019 runoff election. Mr. Ionov is also accused of running an unknown political group in Sacramento that pushed for California to secede from the United States. The indictment said he helped fund a 2018 protest at the state Capitol and encouraged the group’s leader to try to get into the governor’s office. And Mr. Ionov is accused of running an unknown political group in Atlanta that paid for its members to travel to San Francisco this year to protest at the headquarters of a social media company that was restricting pro-Russian posts about the invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Ionoff even provided plans for protest signs, according to the indictment. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the indictment said Mr. Ionov told his associates in Russian intelligence that he had asked the St. Petersburg group to support Russia in the “information war launched” by the West. Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
