NEW YORK (AP) — A Russian legislator and two aides pushed a covert propaganda campaign aimed at winning U.S. government support for Russia’s foreign policy agenda, including moves against Ukraine, according to a Justice Department indictment unsealed on Thursday.
The effort was part of what American officials describe as a broader Russian government objective to sway public opinion in its favor, to sow discord in American institutions and to drive wedges between the U.S. and European allies.
In this case, prosecutors say, the legislators sought to co-opt American and European political officials — including members of the U.S. Congress — and also sought to enter the U.S. under false pretenses to participate in meetings.
The legislator, Aleksandr Babakov, 59, is identified in the indictment as a high-ranking Russian government official from the same political party as Russian President Vladimir Putin who currently serves as deputy chairman of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature. Two of his staff members — Aleksandr Nikolayevich Vorobev, 52, and Mikhail Alekseyevich Plisyuk, 58 — were also charged in Manhattan’s federal court.
All three men named are based in Russia and remain at large, authorities said. They are accused of conspiring to have a U.S. citizen act as a foreign agent for Russia and Russian officials without notifying the Justice Department; with conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions; and with visa fraud conspiracy.
“Today’s indictment demonstrates that Russia’s illegitimate actions against Ukraine extend beyond the battlefield, as political influencers under Russia’s control allegedly plotted to steer geopolitical change in Russia’s favor through surreptitious and illegal means in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Such malign foreign interference will be exposed, and we will pursue justice against its perpetrators.”
The case is part of a concerted Justice Department crackdown against Russia, with prosecutors in recent weeks unsealing cases against an oligarch accused of sanctions violations, a tycoon charged with illegal campaign contributions and, now, a surreptitious effort to sway public opinion in the United States through the spread of propaganda.
Amid Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Justice Department also launched a task force to enforce sanctions violations and export restrictions imposed on Russian figures.
The indictment depicts an effort to reach inside the power chambers of Washington, with the defendants accused of contacting at least one member of Congress five years ago to offer free travel to a conference in Yalta that they and their associates had been working to organize and promote.
The conference was intended to support Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed head of Crimea who had been sanctioned by the U.S. government for his policies threatening Ukraine’s sovereignty. The congressman, who is not identified by name in the indictment, declined the offer, prosecutors said.
The defendants are accused of seeking to “co-opt” American and European politicians and of recruiting an American citizen and other individuals to help advance pro-Kremlin interests.
The effort included requesting a meeting with a member of Congress to push Russia’s agenda in the United States and submitting phony visa applications to travel to the U.S. under the false pretenses of a vacation when they were actually intending to hold meetings with U.S. political figures, the indictment said. The visa applications were ultimately denied.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
