Internet Research Agency Evgenia Prigozhina. The United States has found oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s cook,” guilty of election interference. Breadwinner for children and military

Charges against 13 Russians in the case of interference in the 2016 presidential election. The list included managers and employees of the Internet Research Agency, a so-called “troll factory” located in St. Petersburg.

The list of accused looks like this:

Evgeny Prigozhin (owner of the Concord holding, which financed the Internet Research Agency);
Mikhail Bystrov (CEO of the agency);
Mikhail Burchik, also known as Mikhail Abramov (executive director of the agency);
Alexandra Krylova (responsible for data collection);
Sergey Polozov (IT manager who oversaw the launch of servers in the USA);
Anna Bogacheva (translator, analyst);
Maria Bovda (Head of Translation Department);
Robert Bovda (Deputy Head of Translation Department);
Vladimir Venkov (translator);
Irina Kaverzina (translator);
Jeyhun Aslanov (director of the Azimuth company, through which the agency was financed);
Vadim Podkopaev (analyst);
Gleb Vasilchenko (responsible for monitoring and updating data on social networks).

Three companies have also been charged with election interference: the Internet Research Agency, "Concord Management and Consulting" and "Concord Catering"(part of Prigozhin’s Concord holding). The Justice Department emphasizes that interference in the presidential election is part of a larger Moscow operation called Project Lakhta, which extends beyond the United States.

The indictment includes eight criminal cases. The first is a “conspiracy to deceive”, in which all the above-mentioned people and organizations are involved.

The second is “conspiracy to defraud.” The defendants here are Aslanov, Vasilchenko and the Internet Research Agency. They opened US bank accounts using the personal information of real Americans without their consent (date of birth, address, social security number). Subsequently, these accounts were used to transfer funds from Russia to the United States for holding events.

Another six criminal cases involve identity theft of Americans. The defendants are Aslanov, Vasilchenko, Kaverzina, Venkova and the Internet Research Agency.

The indictment does not indicate that at least one US citizen knowingly participated in the criminal group. Also missing from the document is the claim that Russian interference determined the outcome of the 2016 elections.

In November 2017, RBC magazine published its own investigation into the “troll factory.” The material says that the ex-head of the agency, Mikhail Bystrov, was in the past the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Moskovsky district of St. Petersburg, and now heads the Glavset company, registered at the same address as the troll factory.

RBC magazine called Mikhail Burchik the de facto head of the entire “factory”, and the native of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Aslanov, the head of the “American department” of the agency. Aslanov’s company “Azimut” is engaged in the promotion of accounts on social networks. According to the US Department of Justice, it was through this company that the Concord holding financed the “troll factory.” The PayPal system was most often used to transfer funds.

Only two defendants visited the US territory - Alexandra Krylova and Anna Bogacheva. In June 2014, they traveled to nine states to gather information for the agency. They hid their work details and received tourist visas. After these trips, they concluded that they should concentrate on the “purple states,” where the level of support for Democrats and Republicans is about the same.

What was the election interference?

The Justice Department says the Internet Research Agency's primary purpose was to "create discord in the United States and undermine public confidence in democracy." The Russians influenced public opinion in America using social networks.

To hide its Russian origins, the agency bought space on servers in the United States and created virtual private networks (VPNs). Russians have registered hundreds of accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, using stolen or fake American documents and fictitious bank accounts.

The defendants “positioned themselves as politically and socially active Americans,” created groups on social networks, bought advertising, and also recruited real Americans, paying them to promote political campaigns and organize rallies.

The recruited Americans did not know that they were actually communicating with Russian citizens, the ministry adds.

Trump's speech during the election campaign. Photo: EPA

How did the agency work?

Employees of the “troll factory” have registered numerous accounts on social networks in order to turn non-existent US citizens into “public opinion leaders.” On behalf of these Americans, Russians wrote posts on the US economy and foreign policy.

The Russians worked day and night shifts to publish posts at the right time, taking into account the time zone. They also used a list of American holidays to write relevant texts.

In addition, they created fake Facebook and Instagram groups dedicated to immigration (a group called Secured Borders), the Black Lives Matter movement (Blacktivist), religion (United Muslims of America, Army of Jesus) and certain regions of the United States (South United, Heart of Texas). By 2016, many of the communities created by the agency had hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

Russians also created Twitter accounts that “masqueraded” as the pages of real people or organizations in the United States. For example, an agency has registered an account TEN_GOP, similar to the official page of the regional branch of the Republican Party in Tennessee (the address of the real page differs by one letter: TNGOP). This fake account has amassed more than 100 thousand followers. It is now blocked.

The US Department of Justice claims that in 2016 the agency began using promoted accounts to “transmit derogatory information” about presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, slander candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and support Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. In September 2016, the administrator of the Secured Borders group was reprimanded by management for the small number of posts critical of Clinton. The Ministry of Justice does not specify the source of this information, but other inside information about the agency’s work is based on emails from Russians.

From April to November 2016, the defendants ordered political advertising on American websites and social networks. These ads urged US citizens to vote for Trump and not support Clinton. Advertising was paid from Russian bank accounts registered to fictitious American citizens.

Slogans ranged from "Ohio wants prison for Clinton" to "Hillary is Satan, her crimes and lies have proven how evil she is."

In the second half of 2016, the Russians worked to prevent American minorities from voting. For example, on October 16, the fake Woke Blacks Instagram page posted the following post: “The hype and hatred of Trump is misleading people and causing blacks to vote for Hillary. We cannot choose the lesser of two evils. Then we better not vote at all.” .

“American Muslims are boycotting today's election, most American Muslims are refusing to vote for Hillary Clinton because she wants to continue the war on Muslims in the Middle East, voted for the invasion of Iraq,” said a United Muslims of America post published in November.

How did the Russians organize rallies in the USA?

Beginning in June 2016, the defendants began organizing and coordinating political rallies in the United States. To hide their Russian origin, they posed as local activists who did not have the opportunity to personally attend the rallies. To attract people to rallies, they used their own promoted pages on social networks and ordered advertising in large communities.

Using the March_for_Trump account, the Russians contacted a real Trump campaign volunteer in New York who agreed to provide posters for their rally. Among the events organized by the Russians was a rally in support of Clinton (“Support Hillary. Save American Muslims”), which took place on July 9, 2016. At this rally, a banner was unfurled allegedly with a quote from Clinton: “I think Sharia will be a powerful new direction for freedom.”

Subsequently, Russians held rallies in support of Trump in Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, using the same methods: they bought advertising on Facebook (the announcement about the rally in Florida was seen by 59 thousand people, more than 8 thousand clicked on it), contacted real volunteers and paid Americans to participate or help in the organization (“We’ll give you money to print posters and buy a megaphone”). The US Department of Justice document provides the text of the message that the Russians sent to the administrators of the real Florida for Trump Facebook page:

"Greetings! I'm a member of the online community Be a Patriot. Listen, we have an idea. Florida is still a purple state, we need to paint it red. If we lose Florida, we lose America. We can't afford that." right? How about organizing a huge pro-Trump flash mob in every city in Florida? We're currently looking for local activists, we have guys ready to organize events almost everywhere. But we still need your support. What do you think about it? Are you in?"

After Trump’s victory in the elections, the “troll factory” organized two rallies at once: one in support of the elected president, the second against him. Both took place in New York on the same day - November 12th.

Pro-Trump rally in Florida in October 2016. Photo: EPA

What do they say in Russia?

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said she “doesn’t have the strength” to read news about this investigation. “13 people interfered in the US elections?! 13 against the billion-dollar budgets of the intelligence services? Against intelligence and counterintelligence, against the latest developments and technologies?.. Absurd? Yes. But this is modern American political reality,” -

Charged 13 Russian citizens and three Russian entities with attempting to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. Among the accused is the Internet Research Agency, which, according to media reports, is associated with the structures of businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, as well as two of his companies. All 13 defendants, including Prigozhin himself, are charged with these structures. At the same time, the document says that hundreds of people worked on the corresponding project called “Lakhta”. A grand jury in Washington confirmed the validity of the charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller's team under the articles "conspiracy against the United States" and "fraud." Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, called all talk about Russian interference in the elections “chatter.” Businessman Prigozhin said he was not upset and that “Americans see what they want to see.” And Donald Trump saw in the Justice Department document confirmation that there was no collusion between him and the Russians. How will the situation develop further? About this - in the commentary of political scientist Georgy Bovt.

Special Prosecutor Mueller wants to show that he eats his bread for good reason. This is important amid ongoing tensions between Trump and the FBI and the recent scandal when it was revealed that the FBI investigation into Trump's ties to the Russians was originally ordered by Democrats. 13 people are accused of creating fake accounts on social networks on behalf of US citizens, as well as accounts in the PayPal payment system, including stealing social security numbers, driver's licenses and other personal information. A collection of donations from Americans was organized for supposed election purposes.

“Trolls” on behalf of US citizens contacted people working for the Trump campaign. There was even a fake Twitter account created in the name of the Tennessee Republican Party branch, which gained more than 100 thousand followers.

The US Department of Justice estimates the total amount of funding for the Lakhta project at 73 million rubles per month. Allegedly, the work began back in 2014, when the first experiments in targeted manipulation through American social networks took place. For all these actions, the defendants could face at least ten years in prison.

And although Russia will definitely respond negatively to the request for their extradition, they will be banned from leaving the country for life. Except perhaps for states that do not extradite citizens of third countries at the request of the United States, such as Vietnam, Cuba, Iran and North Korea. All those who are not named in the indictment, but may later be identified as working for the project, should also refrain from leaving.

The indictment completely ignores the issue of the effectiveness of the intervention. And presenting the document, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein emphasized that these actions did not affect the outcome of the election.

In the case of the Lakhta project, the American intelligence services did not even have to dig that hard: almost no one was disguised. Unless they used proxy servers and changed them to new ones, when such activity was quickly detected and blocked by the same Facebook.

This suggests that there were no special services behind the “trolls.” In many respects, this was pure “amateurism”, which did not even reveal a more or less professional knowledge of American realities. The same story of creating a fake Twitter account in the name of supposed Tennessee Republicans confirms this. Because there was no point in working for Trump in this “Republican” state and spending money on it at all. He beat Clinton there by 26%; in 2012, Mitt Romney beat Obama by 20%.

In other words, that’s not how conspiracies work. Moreover, with such a budget, which is generally ridiculous by American standards, part of which was probably cut up at the entrance. However, Special Prosecutor Mueller's investigations will continue to present this case as very serious, and the tricks of hitherto unknown hackers will continue to be a matter of state policy for the Kremlin itself. So Sergei Lavrov and other representatives of the Russian leadership will have to repeat their thesis about “chatter” more than once.

Ex-employee of the St. Petersburg Internet troll factory (formally - Internet Research Agency, and legally - Glavset LLC) Lyudmila Savchuk is suing her former employers. The Internet Research Agency (IRA) has been featured in a number of journalistic investigations as a project of the “Kremlin chef,” entrepreneur Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the main supplier of paid political commentators in the country. In the lawsuit (the Petrogradsky District Court of St. Petersburg will begin considering it on June 1), the girl complains about the lack of an official employment contract and dismissal order, and demands unpaid wages and compensation for moral damage. However, in reality, the plaintiff claims, she wants to “bring the trolls to clean water.”

“Novaya” has already talked about “Kremlinbots” ( cm. ,). The secrets and mechanisms of their work were revealed by Lyudmila herself two months ago, without yet giving her name. Now the girl is not hiding anything and will tell everything in court. Savchuk, together with activists, created her own social movement “Information World” to combat trolling.

— Lyudmila, in March, when you spoke with journalists, including Novaya, you spoke anonymously, gave out information with restraint, now you act openly and even went to court. What changed?

“My friends and colleagues in the social movement consulted and decided: since there are so many of us and the problem is so serious, we will talk about everything on our own behalf. Firstly, in order to set an example for those guys who still work there or have recently left. Secondly, we want to give a sign to society: it’s time to talk openly about this problem.

- What does “there are many of us” mean? You weren't the only one who left?

- No, there are many of us. And I personally know people who worked at this troll factory at the same time as me and also left. They will act as witnesses in court in my lawsuit.

— It can be assumed that in your situation the decisive motive is revenge. You got a job with a decent salary (Lyudmila was promised a salary of about 40 thousand rubles), worked for two months, you weren’t paid for one of them, you were kicked out for disclosing secrets... Your answer is the anti-troll movement, full publicity, a lawsuit... Isn’t this revenge?

- No. To create such an impression, the remaining trolls at the factory are now working. But I don't need it. And I don't need this money. I don't expect to receive them. If I needed money, I would still sit there quietly and work. I am now risking my safety, health and life. Because the people who run this office are very serious. Now it’s more important for me to draw attention to the problem. For this purpose, we filed a lawsuit.

— Is that why you got a job there?

- Yes. I went there not out of conviction, but with a sabotage plan. This was in December. I came across an advertisement for a job at AII. I consulted with my friends, and we decided that I would get a job so that I could study from the inside how it works and understand how to deal with it. On January 2, I went to work and from the very first day I began collecting information, copying documents, and observing what was happening there. I worked as a freelance journalist for ten years, I have experience.

I wasn’t the only one who infiltrated there, and other journalists tried. My difference is that I stayed there for two months. But from the very beginning I was an embedded agent, not a full-fledged troll. I just played the role of an employee. It was interesting. But every day I was in shock, realizing what a large-scale work this was, how many trolls there were, even if you take only this factory. I was shocked by the scale of this work and the complete impunity. I sometimes walked along the corridors and stopped in surprise. She stood there and came to her senses.

— How many people work there? What are they doing? Can you tell us about the structure of the AII’s work?

— About 400 people. The building on Savushkina Street has four floors, long corridors, and many offices. There are many people working in each office - these are different departments. I wasn't able to take a closer look at all of them. But I realized that trolls work on all social networks. I worked in the LJ department. Plus there was a media commentary department, secret fake news editorial offices, where people sat and rewrote the news in the right spirit. Also, some videos for YouTube were constantly being filmed. Pictures were drawn... That is, indeed, this is a factory for the production of lies.

- What kind of people are trolls? Who are they? Their age, education, social status?

— Mostly young people, my age ( Lyudmila is 34 years old) - exception. Students or student-looking people. I don’t know if they are learning, no? Maybe they have already graduated from higher education institutions or are about to graduate. If you look from the outside, without knowing what is happening inside, the troll factory resembles a small private university.

- Do they come there just to grab money? Do they not have pangs of conscience or at least an understanding that they are doing something that is not entirely honest at the very least?

- No, they have no awareness. It reminded me a little of the school atmosphere: as the teacher told me, that’s what I do. I am writing and not arguing whether this is true or false. In one of the departments there was a mocking atmosphere. Trolls sat and laughed evilly at ordinary people on the Internet.

- Are these people of low moral character?

- I can't blame them. I think they just don't realize what they're doing. Some came there because they couldn’t work anywhere else. Maybe they have nowhere to go at all.

The atmosphere there is not conducive to communication. But I still tried to approach people, get acquainted, communicate. I observed the commentary department in the media: they don’t think at all what they write. More precisely, they don't think at all.

— Are certain tasks and instructions given in writing every day?

— It’s different in every department. The LJ department where I worked receives technical assignments every day. It spells out what should be, in what form, who to praise, who to scold, and what conclusion the readers should draw to. Because bloggers write fairly detailed posts. And commentators in the media do not receive any assignments. They are simply explained out loud: what thesis is we presenting today. And they just register and write, register and write...

— What is an atmosphere that is not conducive to communication? Total control? CCTV Cameras? Security? Something else?

- Yes, even when I went to the toilet, I kept looking: was there some kind of camera there? Office doors are constantly closed. Blinds on the windows, which are strictly forbidden to open, so that no one films anything from the outside. Video cameras for constant monitoring so that we don’t call anyone or say anything. It was thanks to the cameras that they managed to identify me.

— Were you exposed immediately after publication in the media?

- Yes. On March 11, I came to work. I immediately realized that it seemed that I would have to flee. I sat and watched the terrible fuss. Everyone was running and saying: “We have an emergency!”, “Someone told everything about our work!” Everyone was wildly tense. They assigned some kind of guard to us. Opposite me sat a girl commentator who had already received the task of writing nasty things under the articles about trolls published on March 11th. She showed me: “We have been discovered!” I nodded to her: “How terrible this is...” And two hours later, the managers found out where the information leak came from. I was taken to the office. There were a lot of people there. All guide. I knew some of them, others didn’t introduce themselves. Everyone was swearing terribly.

— Were you intimidated? Have you been threatened?

- No, they didn’t beat, didn’t hold, didn’t threaten ( laughs). They swore. They were indignant. They were perplexed: “How can this be? Young mother, two children, don’t you need money?” They seriously think that a person will do anything for money. It is clear that they are used to this. But they don’t understand that not everyone is like that.

I ran into the office, grabbed my bag, jumped into my boots, and threw on my clothes. I left some things there, but I understood that I had no time to collect them. When I ran out of there, I called all the journalists and editors I knew. She reported that such a situation had arisen. I fear for my safety because they have all my passport details. They know where I live, how many children I have, and so on... My colleagues helped me. Some measures have been taken.

— When did you realize who the trolls were working for?

- Initially. I read all the previously published articles in the media. Both many leaders and the owner of the troll factory, Yevgeny Prigozhin, have long been exposed by journalists. Of course, I knew about them. In general, any troll can enter a query on the Internet and understand who he is working for.

- Do you understand that it will be quite difficult for you to prove something in court?

“The main thing is to bring the troll factory out into the light.” And I have already done this with my decision to sue. Now hundreds of thousands of people are talking about this. Even if not all of them yet or do not fully understand my actions, people learned about it and paid attention to this problem.

— Do you expect to see the defendants in court?

- We hope so. At least the court will call them. Journalists will call the defendants and try to get comments. This is already good. My ultimate goal and the goal of our movement is to close the troll factory. All our steps are aimed at this.

Photo courtesy of Lyudmila Savchuk

On March 15, Washington expanded sanctions against Moscow. The document was published on the website of the US Department of the Treasury. The list included 14 Russians and one organization from Russia—Evgeniy Prigozhin’s Internet Research Agency. All but one individual sanctioned are employees of the Internet Research Agency, which in the United States is called a “troll factory” and is suspected of interfering in the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Persons associated with the GRU are also mentioned - Grigory Molchanov and Sergei Afanasyev (the latter is called in open sources the deputy head of the GRU). Today's actions address Russia's ongoing destabilization efforts, which began with interference in the US election and continued with cyberattacks, including the February 15 NotPetya cyberattack. American intelligence is confident that Russia is behind attacks on the US energy sector. The American Ministry of Finance shares the same opinion. “This is by no means the end of our campaign to force Mr. Putin to change his behavior,” CNN quoted an unnamed senior US administration official as saying today. “The Administration is confronting and countering malicious Russian cyber activity, including attempts to interfere with elections, cyber attacks and incursions into critical infrastructure,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. Prigozhin and his other companies, Concord Management and Concord Catering, were already on the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list. According to the US Treasury, since 2014, the defendants have knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other “to defraud the United States by damaging, obstructing, and disrupting the lawful activities of the government through fraud and deception, to interfere with the political and electoral process in the United States, including 2016 presidential elections." The Internet Research Agency and other Russians allegedly used social media and organized demonstrations with the “strategic goal of sowing discord in the US political system.” In particular, by mid-2016, the agency focused its activities on “supporting” the campaign of Donald Trump and “defaming” Hillary Clinton. The Kremlin, in a statement from the US Department of Justice, did not see “substantial evidence that someone interfered in the elections” in the US, especially not at the state level. The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, called the accusations absurd, pointing out that 13 people are negligible for interfering in the US elections. The CAATSA law adopted in the United States in the summer of 2017 makes it possible to impose sanctions against not only Russian businessmen and companies, but also their partners around the world. It was a response to Russia’s actions, which the United States considers interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has charged 13 Russians with conspiracy against the United States in connection with interference in the US presidential election. The indictment was published on the website of the US Department of Justice.

Among the accused are businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Internet Research Agency, known as the “troll factory,” as well as Prigozhin’s company Concord Management and Consulting.

Also charged were the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Moskovsky district of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Bystrov, who, according to RBC, headed the Internet Research Agency, and Mikhail Burchik, the “de facto head of the factory”, the former owner IT-companies VkAp.ru And GaGaDo. All the accused were Prigozhin's subordinates.

According to American investigators, the accused Russians have been attempting to infiltrate the US political system since 2014. They ran social networks on behalf of American citizens, fictional and real, to influence US users; some of the defendants traveled to the United States under false pretenses to gather information.

The Mueller Commission believes that the defendants conspired to influence the course of “political and electoral processes in the United States” through fraud and deception. The charges were brought under articles of criminal conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to commit fraudulent misappropriation of funds and aggravated identity theft.

The indictment mentions an incident at the end of May 2016, when negotiations were carried out about an action at the White House in Washington from an account controlled by the Agency. As a result, a certain US citizen came to the White House with a poster “Happy 55th anniversary, dear boss!” Yevgeny Prigozhin turned 55 on June 1, 2016.

In January 2017, US intelligence agencies released a report on Russian interference in the American presidential election, which mentioned the Internet Research Agency. According to American authorities, the agency created fake accounts in Facebook, Twitter And YouTube, through which they tried to manipulate public opinion. In October 2017, RBC reported that during the US presidential elections, about 90 people from the St. Petersburg “troll factory” operated 118 English-speaking communities and accounts.

Updated at 22:03 Yevgeny Prigozhin commented on the accusations in a conversation with RIA Novosti. “Americans are very impressionable people, they see what they want to see. I have great respect for them. I'm not at all upset that I ended up on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see it,” Prigozhin said.