{"id":22926,"date":"2022-07-31T05:12:16","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T09:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=22926"},"modified":"2022-07-31T05:12:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T09:12:16","slug":"alexander-ionov-case-us-charges-russian-with-interfering-in-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/07\/31\/alexander-ionov-case-us-charges-russian-with-interfering-in-us-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Ionov case: US charges Russian with interfering in US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US prosecutors have charged a Russian national with conspiring to use US citizens as “illegal agents of the Russian government”.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The US Justice Department indictment also alleges that Alexander Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, tried to interfere in US elections.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It says he ran the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), a body which recruited US political groups to further Russian state interests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He has denounced the US accusation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The\u00a0indictment says<\/a>\u00a0Mr Ionov worked under the direction of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and controlled certain unnamed political groups in Florida, Georgia and California.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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One of the Russian goals, it alleges, was to “promote California’s secession from the United States”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He could face a maximum of five years in jail if found guilty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Denouncing the indictment\u00a0on Facebook<\/a>, Mr Ionov said: “I have never met such nonsense and deception.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“There are no specific names of officials, there is no evidence of funding and there are no intelligible arguments.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He went on: “The Ukrainian crisis has driven American officials crazy! Comrades, now you see what kind of ‘democracy’ exists in the USA!”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Ionov has told CNN he is currently in Russia. As with other Western indictments of senior Russian figures, he is likely to be tried in absentia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dozens of senior Russian officials and state-controlled bodies, including banks, are under Western sanctions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and earlier annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Malign influence’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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The US indictment says that from at least December 2014 until March 2022, Mr Ionov and at least three Russian officials “engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Ionov has denounced some independent Russian media organisations, including The Bell and Meduza, and got them labelled as “foreign agents” under Russian law. That label restricts their activities in Russia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The US Treasury Department also\u00a0announced sanctions<\/a>\u00a0against Mr Ionov, the AGMR and two other organisations allegedly controlled by him: the STOP-Imperialism website and Ionov Transcontinental, a company “which has a footprint in Iran, Venezuela and Lebanon”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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