prigozhin wagner gp

=see meddling active measuresomg pvt military?! pmc wagner?see human rights violationssee putinsee war crimessyria assad= 8 23in true Russian style, Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin's airplane stumbled into a rocket and somehow burst into flames upon crash landing. Prigozhin attempted to stage a coup against Russian overlord Vladimir Putin and failed; he has now met the end we all expected.One can only avoid open windows, polonium tea, and air travel for so long, after pissing off Putin. Sadly, it seems innocent people were also killed in this terrible act.<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66599733" style="font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: none;">BBC</a>:<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" style="padding-left: 12px; margin: 25px 15px 25px 24px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(136, 136, 136); box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The jet, which was flying from Moscow to St Petersburg, was carrying seven passengers and three crew.Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against the Russian armed forces in June.Grey Zone said local residents heard two bangs before the crash and saw two vapour trails.Tass news agency said the plane caught fire on hitting the ground, adding that four bodies had already been found.The aircraft had been in the air for less than half an hour, it said.</blockquote><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>no lnx  $ </div><div>Worldwide fascism is being accelerated by the one thing few people want to talk about</div><div>
</div><div>Thom Hartmann</div><div>August 22, 2023</div><div>
</div><div>This article was paid for by AlterNet subscribers. </div><div>
</div><div>The government of the Netherlands fell this summer. The issue that tipped it over the edge was immigration driven by climate change. If Putin wanted to destroy democracy in Europe (and he does), back in 2015 he couldn’t have picked a better strategy. Odds are, though, he was just trying to protect his deepwater ports; it wasn’t until the crisis developed that he realized how he could exploit it to overthrow liberal democracies in the EU. The way it’s played out gives us a glimpse into our future — and the future of democratic republics all across the world — as the global climate emergency and the refugee crisis associated with it grows more severe over the next few years.</div><div>
</div><div>The current rise-of-rightwing-fascism crisis building in Europe began in 2010 and started with global climate change.</div><div>
</div><div>The fall of that year saw unusually severe rainfall across the wheat-growing parts of Canada, cutting that nation’s wheat harvest, along with drought across Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and China. A La Nina caused crop failures in Argentina and Peru. Worldwide prices of staple foods, particularly wheat, exploded.</div><div>
</div><div>On December 17 of that year a street vendor in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire to protest the high cost of the wheat he needed to make the foods he and his peers sold, and the harassment of police against their protests. It sparked what we referred to then as the Arab Spring, that lasted through most of 2011.</div><div>
</div><div>The steady warming and drought in that area, though, never let up and the desert in North Africa relentlessly continued to eat up millions of acres of food-producing land, particularly across Syria. By 2015 it had pushed over a million Syrian subsistence farmers off their land — that had desertified — and into Syria’s cities, particularly Damascus and Aleppo.</div><div>
</div><div>Northern Africa became the world’s number one food importer, and the prices kept rising relentlessly.</div><div>
</div><div>Newly homeless, hungry, and destitute, these Syrian farmers began demonstrations in the streets demanding food, shelter, and employment or “welfare” payments from the Syrian government.</div><div>
</div><div>Bashar Assad, being a psychopathic dictator, ordered his troops to fire live ammunition into the crowds in 2012 and 2013, and soon a full-blown revolt was on: “rebels” seized Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, in early 2013.</div><div>
</div><div>Syria was also the base for Russia’s Mediterranean fleet, with multiple deep-water ports that Putin believed were critical to his nation’s military defense. By 2015 he had a dozen battleships there, along with submarines and other warships.</div><div>
</div><div>He had to prevent the Assad government from falling or risk an “Arab Spring democracy” emerging — as happened for a short while in Tunisia and Egypt — that might align itself with the West and kick Russia out.</div><div>
</div><div>Making a long story short, Putin bombed the crap out of Syria on Assad’s behalf, virtually leveling the city of Aleppo, killing hundreds of civilians.</div><div>
</div><div>It was one of the worst war crimes of this century, almost as deadly as George W. Bush’s brutal and criminal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of climate and war refugees fled the country, joining Bush’s wars’ fugitives making their way into Europe by any means possible.</div><div>
</div><div>Thus began Europe’s refugee crisis, which just helped bring down Holland’s government. In two weeks, it may well cause the rightwing fascist-aligned anti-immigrant People’s Party to come to power in the Spanish elections on July 23.</div><div>
</div><div>As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted in a 2021 report:</div><div>
</div><div>“By the end of 2016, nearly 5.2 million refugees and migrants reached European shores, undertaking treacherous journeys from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries torn apart by war and persecution.”</div><div>
</div><div>This flood of brown-skinned Muslims fleeing African and Middle Eastern climate change and wars into Europe over the past decade is why Italy and Sweden now have rightwing leaders; why Viktor Orbán was able to gain and hold power in Hungary with his promise to “build a wall” along Hungary’s southern border (a promise he kept); and why rightwing parties are today growing so rapidly in Germany, Greece, Norway, Austria, Belgium and France.</div><div>
</div><div>The legacy of five centuries of racist imperialism across four continents has been that wealth and safety from the ravages of climate change are concentrated in mostly White-run nations, while vulnerability to desertification and poverty are concentrated in mostly Brown- and Black-run nations.</div><div>
</div><div>When Russia intervened in British politics to tear apart the EU, their trolls’ main Facebook pitch for Brexit was that “those [Brown and Black] people” the EU had let in were now making their way to the UK.</div><div>
</div><div>While every country in the world can accept refugees in small numbers without crisis, when “other people” begin showing up in large numbers the response by every nation in history typically tends toward rightwing nationalism and xenophobia, an obsession with borders, and demands for racial, cultural, and religious “purity.”</div><div>
</div><div>Here in North America we’re seeing a similar dynamic. Reagan so severely destabilized Central America and Venezuela with his sanctions, illegal Iran-Contra program, and support for rightwing death squads that those nations never recovered. In the years since, climate change has bit these weakened governments deep, forcing millions of subsistence farmers — just like in Syria but here mostly from hard-hit Guatemala — off land that once grew crops but is now, just a few years later, scrub desert.</div><div>
</div><div>Exploiting the climate refugee crisis on America’s southern border, Republican politicians have spent the years since Obama’s election in 2008 falsely claiming that Democrats had thrown the border “open,” producing thousands of news stories that have been used by coyotes — human traffickers — to draw even more refugees toward the United States.</div><div>
</div><div>Compounding that, Trump launched his 2016 campaign on keeping Brown people out of the United States, and today racism and xenophobia form the foundation of most Republican political campaigns (when they aren’t hating on queer people or women).</div><div>
</div><div>The result of these trends has been a worldwide shift to the right. As Freedom House noted in a 2022 report, over 60 countries experienced “declines” in democracy the previous year; only about 20 percent of people worldwide now live in “free” nations:</div><div>
</div><div>“Global freedom faces a dire threat. … Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same. …</div><div>“The global order is nearing a tipping point, and if democracy’s defenders do not work together to help guarantee freedom for all people, the authoritarian model will prevail.”</div><div>
</div><div>So far, the western world’s refugee crisis has been mostly driven by massive policy errors and outright war crimes: Russia’s response to the Syrian farmers, the US invasion and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and American meddling in Central America and Venezuela.</div><div>
</div><div>But all have been either triggered or exacerbated by the worldwide climate emergency. And, as we can see from this summer’s weather worldwide, that emergency is building at a rate far more rapid than even alarmist climate scientists were predicting just a decade ago.</div><div>
</div><div>Recent projections show that within just the next two decades as many as three billion people could be fleeing areas that will soon only marginally support human life.</div><div>
</div><div>As equatorial regions become uninhabitable, the mostly darker-skinned people living there will be migrating north and south into areas controlled by lighter-skinned people in numbers that will make today’s Syrian, Iraq, and Afghan refugee crisis look like a statistical blip.</div><div>
</div><div>It will put worldwide white supremacist and Nazi movements into hyperdrive.</div><div>
</div><div>In addition to acting immediately to mitigate climate change and green the world’s economy, the free nations of the world must harden our democracies against reactive rightwing violence- and hate-based racist political movements.</div><div>
</div><div>That will also require radically reducing the Supreme Court-gifted political power of big money here in America — particularly from the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it has created — and returning that power and wealth to the hard-hit majority. The Democratic Party in America is increasingly committed to this, but Republicans and the dozens of billionaires in their camp are prepared to spend heretofore unimaginable sums to keep climate deniers and race-baiters in office.</div><div>
</div><div>We also must help those nations most hard-hit by the warming — caused largely by our carbon pollution — to deal with their own refugees internally, lest they irrecoverably destabilize first their own governments and then ours.</div><div>
</div><div>To paraphrase JFK, we are not helpless before this task.</div><div>
</div><div>But it will require western and American media and political systems to take on these three crises — climate change, the refugees it produces, and politicians who demagogue the issue while blocking forward progress — now.</div><div>
</div><div>We are quite literally out of time.</div><div>
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</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>=an 3 23 no lnx
no lnx
'Check the torture cellar': Russian mercenary boss leaves U.S. reporter disturbing message about a 'corpse'

Maya Boddie March 30, 2023
Russian mercenary leader and Vladimir Putin's "chef", Yevgeny Prigozhin, sent a disturbing audio message Thursday, in response to The Daily Beast reporter, Allison Quinn's, question regarding the Russian Wagner Group.

"Dear Allison, baby, you are asking too many questions today," the private military company boss said in the message. "I am busy searching my garden plot for the corpse of your colleague, and you are asking me about some new events."

The Daily Beast reports:

Prigozhin's ominous statement about corpse-hunting in his garden is likely a reference to an earlier message the mercenary boss provided to The Daily Beast, when asked about the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

READ MORE: Vladimir Putin's 'chef' says his mercenaries 'will take Bakhmut anyway' despite Kremlin's 'envy'

Prigozhin told The Daily Beast he would "check the torture cellar in my house to see if he's there" – referring to Gershkovich.

"At first glance, I didn't see him among the American journalists I keep there by the dozens. I can, if you want, also look at the fresh graves of foreign journalists on my house plot. But if I’m not mistaken, we didn’t bury him there either," he said.

U.S citizen Gershkovich, according to The Daily Beast, was arrested and "detained in the west-central city of Yekaterinburg," Thursday, "the Federal Security Service confirmed to state media." The reporter was "suspected of spying in the interests of the U.S. government."

The Wall Street Journal reports President Joe Biden "was briefed on the detention of Mr. Gershkovich, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters," and "she reiterated earlier State Department warnings that Americans are urged to avoid traveling to Russia."

READ MORE: Why Putin may be trying to 'weaken' a 'paramilitary mercenary' group he hired to fight in Ukraine: report

"We've been very clear about Americans not going to Russia. It is not safe," Jean-Pierre said.

Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said, "In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices."

READ MORE: 'Carefully, precisely, surgically': Russian oligarch tied to Putin admits to interfering in US elections

The Daily Beast's full report is available at this link (subscription required). The Wall Street Journal's full report is here (subscription required).

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Kremlin officials plan 'bomb shelter upgrades across Russia' as Putin prepares new Ukraine offensive: report ›
Why Putin may be trying to 'weaken' a 'paramilitary mercenary' group he hired to fight in Ukraine: report ›
Vladimir Putin's 'chef' says his mercenaries 'will take Bakhmut anyway' despite Kremlin's 'envy' ›
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<a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/8/headlines/wagner_group_says_it_seized_eastern_bakhmut_nyt_reports_pro_ukrainian_group_sabotaged_pipelines">https://www.democracynow.org/2023/3/8/headlines/wagner_group_says_it_seized_eastern_bakhmut_nyt_reports_pro_ukrainian_group_sabotaged_pipelines</a><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">=</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118">https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1118</a></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Treasury Sanctions Russia-Linked Election Interference Actors</div><div>
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div class="date-format field field--name-field-news-publication-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden fielditem" style="margin-bottom: 20px;"><time datetime="2020-09-10T15:15:49Z">September 10, 2020</time></div><div class="field field--name-field-news-body field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem">Washington – Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated four Russia-linked individuals for attempting to influence the U.S. electoral process. Russia uses a variety of proxies to attempt to sow discord between political parties and drive internal divisions to influence voters as part of Moscow’s broader efforts to undermine democratic countries and institutions. In the United States, Russia has used a wide range of influence methods and actors to target our electoral process, including targeting U.S. presidential candidates.Treasury designated Andrii Derkach (Derkach) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13848 for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Derkach, a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament, has been an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services. Derkach has directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election. Today’s designation of Derkach is focused on exposing Russian malign influence campaigns and protecting our upcoming elections from foreign interference. This action is a clear signal to Moscow and its proxies that this activity will not be tolerated. The Administration is working across the U.S. Government, and with state, local, and private sector partners, to make the 2020 election secure.“Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world,” said Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to counter these Russian disinformation campaigns and uphold the integrity of our election system.”Derkach’s Election Influence EffortsFrom at least late 2019 through mid-2020, Derkach waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election, spurring corruption investigations in both Ukraine and the United States designed to culminate prior to election day. Derkach’s unsubstantiated narratives were pushed in Western media through coverage of press conferences and other news events, including interviews and statements.Between May and July 2020, Derkach released edited audio tapes and other unsupported information with the intent to discredit U.S. officials, and he levied unsubstantiated allegations against U.S. and international political figures. Derkach almost certainly targeted the U.S. voting populace, prominent U.S. persons, and members of the U.S. government, based on his reliance on U.S. platforms, English-language documents and videos, and pro-Russian lobbyists in the United States used to propagate his claims.Treasury Continues to Hold Russian Actors AccountableToday’s designation of Derkach is another example of the Treasury department promoting accountability for Kremlin-linked individuals seeking to undermine confidence in U.S. democratic processes. Treasury has previously designated the Russian troll factory known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), and its Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin. Prigozhin has been designated by the United States pursuant to E.O. 13661, E.O. 13694, as amended, and most recently by E.O. 13848 for providing material support to the IRA’s influence activities against the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.Today, Treasury also designated three IRA actors pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended by E.O. 13757, and E.O. 13848 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the IRA, an entity designated pursuant to E.O. 13694, as amended, and E.O. 13848. Russian nationals Artem Lifshits, Anton Andreyev, and Darya Aslanova, as employees of the IRA, supported the IRA’s cryptocurrency accounts. The IRA uses cryptocurrency to fund activities in furtherance of their ongoing malign influence operations around the world.OFAC coordinated today’s action against the IRA with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia and the United States Secret Service.As a result of today’s designations, all property and interests in property of these targets that are subject to U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. Additionally, any entities 50 percent or more owned by one or more designated persons are also blocked.<a href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/recent-actions/20200910" style="text-decoration-line: none;">View identifying information on the individuals designated today.</a></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">=</div>=an 11 22A Russian oligarch with ties to <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Vladimir+Putin" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Vladimir Putin</a> is finally admitting to have interfered in the United States’ elections, and is promising he still is and will continue to do so.“Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” boasted Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative Kremlin catering contracts, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-business-social-media-7fefa7ab0491b653f6094a4d090155fe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Associated Press</a> reports.Prigozhin’s statement came “from the press service of his catering company…on the eve of U.S. midterm elections in response to a request for comment.”The U.S. Dept. of Justice has not commented, but in February of 2018 announced that <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-russian-individuals-and-three-russian-companies-scheme-interfere" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Prigozhin was part of a large grand jury indictment via Robert Mueller</a>.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/02/americas-conservatives-adore%E2%80%8B-vladimir-putins-far-right-christian-nationalism-more-than-freedom-and-democracy/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">America’s Conservatives Adore Vladimir Putin’s Far Right Christian Nationalism – More Than Freedom and Democracy</a>“The Department of Justice announced that a grand jury in the District of Columbia … returned an indictment presented by the Special Counsel’s Office,” the DOJ’s statement reads. “The indictment charges thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies for committing federal crimes while seeking to interfere in the United States political system, including the 2016 Presidential election. The defendants allegedly conducted what they called ‘information warfare against the United States,’ with the stated goal of ‘spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.'”That statement specifically names “Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin,” alleging he “funded the conspiracy through companies known as Concord Management and Consulting LLC, Concord Catering, and many subsidiaries and affiliates. The conspiracy was part of a larger operation called ‘Project Lakhta.’ Project Lakhta included multiple components, some involving domestic audiences within the Russian Federation and others targeting foreign audiences in multiple countries.”Calling him the “Russian who orchestrates Putin’s private army,” <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-years-of-trump-russia-denials-putins-enforcer-yevgeny-prigozhin-admits-election-interference?ref=scroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Daily Beast</a> adds that Prigozhin “did not specify which election the Russians have intervened in, but he is well aware that there has been intense focus, and several indictments, surrounding Russia’s alleged efforts in the election of Trump, when there was reason to believe that Kremlin wanted the former reality TV star to be victorious.”[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/for-the-second-night-in-a-row-trump-admitted-his-guilt-over-secret-documents-legal-experts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">For the Second Night in a Row Trump Admitted His Guilt Over Secret Documents: Legal Experts</a>Prigozhin, according to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/russias-prigozhin-admits-interfering-us-elections-2022-11-07/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Reuters</a>, “has been formally accused of sponsoring Russia-based ‘troll farms’ that seek to influence U.S. politics.”Last week CNN reported Prigozhin has been growing his influence inside the Kremlin by leveraging his “brutal” Wagner Group mercenaries “who are operating in Ukraine.”Watch that video below or <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/11/carefully-precisely-surgically-russian-oligarch-tied-to-putin-admits-to-interfering-in-us-elections/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">at this link</a>.=<a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/10/19/russia-hack-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin/">https://theintercept.com/2022/10/19/russia-hack-wagner-group-yevgeny-prigozhin/</a>
in SEPTEMBER, a video surfaced online apparently showing Yevgeny Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman and close associate of Vladimir Putin, speaking to a group of incarcerated men in the yard of a Russian prison. Prigozhin was encouraging them to join the Wagner Group, the infamous mercenary organization he founded, and fight in Ukraine as a way out of prison.
The video signaled Prigozhin’s first apparent confirmation that he does, in fact, control Wagner. While Prigozhin had been known for years for his connection to the group, he had until recently always denied that he controlled its fighters, who have deployed in support of Russian campaigns in half a dozen conflicts around the world, where many have been accused of human rights abuses that include torture, rape, and the mass killing of civilians. More videos confirming Prigozhin’s role at the helm of Wagner have since emerged, and for the first time he acknowledged founding the group in a statement issued last month through one of his companies.
Wagner got its start during the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and as evidence of its mercenaries’ abuses mounted, Prigozhin fiercely fought off reports of his links to them, often enlisting the help of attorneys to do so. Now, a cache of hacked emails and documents reviewed by The Intercept details for the first time the behind-the-scenes relationship between Prigozhin’s legal team in Russia and several British and U.S. law firms that worked on his behalf to contest sanctions; defend him against U.S. prosecution; discredit journalists investigating his shadowy businesses; and sue Eliot Higgins, the founder of the investigative website Bellingcat.
Earlier this year, Higgins’s attorneys took action against the British firm that sued him for defamation on behalf of Prigozhin. In a complaint to the U.K. Solicitors Regulation Authority, Higgins accused the firm, Discreet Law LLP, of filing a so-called SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation: litigation intended to intimidate or censor critics into silence by saddling them with the costs of defending themselves in court. Higgins told The Intercept that the hacked emails further reinforce his position.
“We always knew this was a SLAPP action and a possible abuse of process. It now appears that Prigozhin and, worse, his lawyers knew as well, but went ahead with it anyway,” Higgins wrote in a statement to The Intercept after reviewing the emails. “It seems this was a calculated effort by Prigozhin, aided by his lawyers, to quash the free press as part of a cynical PR campaign to challenge international sanctions.”
While reliance on foreign law firms is hardly unusual or illegal for an oligarch with global business interests, the emails and documents paint the most detailed picture yet of how a well-known but secretive figure — dubbed as “Putin’s chef” by the Western media because of his catering company’s business relationship with the Kremlin — worked with lawyers to clean up his worsening reputation as a Russian warlord. As he faced intensifying scrutiny in recent years, and as his businesses came under pressure following sanctions, Prigozhin relied on the services of at least four U.S. and U.K.-based firms, according to the documents.
The emails paint Prigozhin as a man fixated on challenging the narrative that had formed around him — even though he has come to embrace that narrative in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that Russia launched in February. In a failed effort to contest sanctions, some of Prigozhin’s attorneys sought to discredit the growing body of reporting that connected him to the Wagner Group, which he believed to be the basis for the sanctions against him.
But while surrounding himself with teams of legal advisors, Prigozhin at times sought to do things his own way. The hacked documents, for instance, include a lengthy draft letter Prigozhin wrote to former President Donald Trump urging him to appoint former special counsel Robert Mueller to prosecute one of his companies, which U.S. officials had accused of election interference, so that Prigozhin could personally face Mueller in court and clear his name. (Prosecutors later dropped the case.) That draft letter, which appears to ultimately not have been sent, stated that it was written against the advice of Prigozhin’s U.S. attorneys.
The documents and emails were unearthed in a series of hacks against over 50 Russian companies and government agencies after this year’s invasion, in what appears to be the largest cumulative hack of a nation-state to have ever taken place. The companies hacked included a top Russian law firm that represents Prigozhin: Capital Legal Services, which has offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Helsinki, Finland. The identities of the hackers are not known. The CLS files were hacked by activists associated with Anonymous, but The Intercept was not able to speak with the people behind that hack.
...As Putin’s invasion of Ukraine escalated into a monthslong conflict with tens of thousands of casualties, the Wagner Group played a symbolic and at times strategic role supporting Putin’s war with thousands of mercenaries.European officials believe that upward of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/19/russia-deployed-20000-mercenaries-ukraine-donbas-region" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">20,000 mercenaries</a> were deployed in support of Russia’s war in the first months of the invasion, including fighters Wagner had recruited in Syria and Libya, where it has long operated. Wagner mercenaries are believed to have been behind a series of so-called <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60947877" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">false flag</a> attacks in eastern Ukraine before the invasion, intended to give Russia a pretext to attack. Since the invasion, Ukrainian officials have accused Wagner mercenaries of committing war crimes, alongside Russian soldiers, that include the killing of civilians in Bucha. Wagner mercenaries have also faced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-role-in-ukraine-wearing-down-russian-mercenary-force-2022-9https:/www.businessinsider.com/wagner-group-role-in-ukraine-wearing-down-russian-mercenary-force-2022-9" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">losses in Ukraine</a>, including after U.S.-provided rockets hit one of the group’s bases in the Luhansk region in August. As Putin has sought to replenish the ranks of Russia’s military, Prigozhin appears to have done the same with Wagner’s, including by recruiting in Russian prisons.Prigozhin had long been known to U.S. and European officials, who have investigated his activities, including <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/social-media-content/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">interfering</a> in the 2016 U.S. election by funding a troll factory, the Internet Research Agency. In 2018, he was<a href="https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;"> among</a> the individuals and companies indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy in relation to the election interference. Two years later, just weeks before the case was supposed to go to trial, prosecutors <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-concord/u-s-prosecutors-drop-mueller-era-case-against-russian-firm-idUSKBN21405P" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">dropped</a> charges against two of Prigozhin’s companies, Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering. But Prigozhin continues to face charges. Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin was under sanctions in the U.S. over that interference, and in Europe over Wagner’s involvement in the conflict in Libya. Along with his mother, wife, and children, Prigozhin <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/6f3ce193-ab7d-4449-ac1b-751d49b1aaf8" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">faced additional sanctions</a> as a result of the invasion....==11/19
<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50264747">https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50264747</a>
no lnx pix
Powerful 'Putin's chef' Prigozhin cooks up murky deals4 November 2019
The wealthy Russian businessman nicknamed "Putin's chef" - Yevgeny Prigozhin - has his fingers in lots of pies.
He made his fortune running catering businesses in the 1990s - hence the nickname. And he joined President Vladimir Putin's elite circle when the Russian leader started dining at his luxury floating restaurant in St Petersburg, called New Island, in 2001.
Like many other Russian oligarchs, Mr Prigozhin, 58, has branched out into various businesses, uses shadowy offshore firms and enjoys a lavish jet-set lifestyle.
But the US government is trying to clip Mr Prigozhin's wings: it has stepped up sanctions against him and his businesses because of his alleged meddling in US elections.
Investigations by Western journalists and think tanks also link Mr Prigozhin to a Russian mercenary group called Wagner, accused of pursuing Russian state interests in war-torn Syria and Libya, as well as hotspots in sub-Saharan Africa.
Who are Russia's shadowy mercenaries fighting in Syria?He has denied the Western allegations, but his business ventures remain very opaque.
He came to prominence in St Petersburg, Mr Putin's home city, but was not in the original group of Putin allies, who formed a dacha (country-house) club called Ozero.
In his twenties, before becoming a hot-dog salesman and successful caterer, he was jailed for nine years for robbery and fraud.
Russia's "shock therapy" capitalism of the 1990s created many business opportunities for criminals, as they could call on friends to fend off aggressive rivals.Mr Prigozhin has kept a low profile for years, but in 2011 he told a St Petersburg newspaper about a children's tale he once wrote, which featured midgets defending a king against enemies.
How did he get involved in US politics?The US Treasury announced new sanctions against Mr Prigozhin on 30 September, accusing him of steering Russian efforts to influence the US 2018 mid-term elections.
He was implicated again through the infamous Internet Research Agency (IRA), identified as a St Petersburg "troll factory" which, US authorities say, used fake internet accounts and fake news to influence US voters in the 2016 presidential election.
Mr Prigozhin, his Concord Catering firm, business associates and IRA were indicted by a US Grand Jury in February 2018 over that election interference.
The charges were drawn up by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating alleged Russian attempts to help Donald Trump's election campaign.
Mr Prigozhin shrugged off the indictment, saying: "Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I'm not at all upset that I'm on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him."
US election tampering charge for RussiansThe tactics of a Russian troll farmRussia-Trump troll suspect defends role]
The latest sanctions target Mr Prigozhin and some of his luxury assets over "influence operations" linked to the US 2018 mid-term elections.
Once again, the US government says, his IRA used "fictitious personas on social media and disseminated false information". The activities are not thought to have distorted the US election results.
The US believes he funds the agency via Concord Catering.The US Treasury posted this photo of Mr Prigozhin's yacht St VitaminThe US sanctions name three private jets and a luxury yacht allegedly used by Mr Prigozhin, his family and associates - luxuries registered in the Seychelles and Cayman Islands offshore tax havens.
US individuals and firms are now prohibited from doing business with him or providing services for his jets and yacht, called St Vitamin. The jets have flown many times to destinations in Africa, the Middle East and Europe in recent years, the US statement says.
Concord Catering has now been ordered by a Moscow court to pay compensation to parents over a food poisoning outbreak.
Mr Prigozhin's firm provides meals for Moscow's schools, but last December about 130 kindergarten children fell ill with dysentery.
The oligarch's African cookbookResearch by Facebook and internet specialists at Stanford University points to opinion-forming operations on social media in Africa, linked to Mr Prigozhin.
On 30 October Facebook said it had suspended three networks of Russian internet accounts aimed at covertly influencing events in several African countries.
The Russian origins of the "inauthentic" behaviour were masked by using local nationals, it said.
The first network targeted: Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast and Cameroon.
The second network targeted Sudan and the third focused on Libya.
A BBC investigation found that at least six candidates were offered money by Russians in Madagascar's 2018 presidential elections.Mr Prigozhin dismissed the Facebook allegations, saying the US media giant was "indulging in PR for itself".
A year ago Russia sent 175 military instructors to the Central African Republic (CAR) - a country racked by militia violence - to help the army of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra.
Wagner mercenaries are reported to be active in CAR, where Russia has won gold and diamond mining concessions. France, CAR's former colonial master, also has a military presence in the country.
It was while trying to investigate a suspected link between the mines and the mercenary group that three Russian journalists were shot dead in an ambush in 2018. Nobody has been charged in connection with it.
A CNN investigation unearthed a CAR government mining contract with Lobaye Invest, a Russian firm run by Yevgeny Khodotov, another St Petersburg businessman reported to be linked to Mr Prigozhin's network.
But Lobaye Invest is shrouded in secrecy, and Mr Prigozhin has denied any link to it.
Russian soldiers belonging to an outfit called Sewa Security are protecting President Touadéra. It is suspected of being a front company for Wagner.In August 2018 Russian soldiers and diplomats were seen close to the CAR presidentLast month President Putin hosted 43 African leaders in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, underlining Russia's new global ambition. He is keen to revive Moscow's Soviet-era ties with African countries, challenging the West.
What are Putin's intentions in Africa?What else has Mr Prigozhin been doing?His alleged link to Wagner is through his military catering business: under President Putin he won a big deal to feed the Russian armed forces.
The US Treasury has put Wagner on the sanctions list too, saying it "sent soldiers to fight alongside separatists in eastern Ukraine".
It says Mr Prigozhin "has extensive business dealings" with the Russian defence ministry.
The oligarch's latest venture is similarly aligned with Mr Putin's agenda.
He is heading a new pro-Kremlin media group called Patriot. The group says it will counter "anti-Russia" media that "do not notice the good things that are happening in the country".
It brings together four news websites based in St Petersburg: RIA FAN news agency, Narodnye Novosti, Ekonomika Segodnya and Politika Segodnya.
Its combined audience is reckoned to be greater than that of state news agency Tass or pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT.
Mr Prigozhin said he was glad to head Patriot's board of trustees.
Research by the BBC's Laurence Peter=omg pvt military?! pmc wagner?==<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa</a>
libya?

Putin’s Notorious ‘Chef’ Is Now Meddling Across AfricaThe man indicted in the U.S. for interfering in the 2016 election is spreading Russia’s reach across the continent.
undefinedBusinessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, known as Putin’s “chef” because of his catering company and ties to the Kremlin, and Vladimir Putin.

By , , and The secretive businessman known as Vladimir Putin’s “chef” for his Kremlin catering work is alleged to have helped Russia seize parts of Ukraine, turn the tide in the Syrian war and meddle in U.S. elections. Now he’s reaching deep into Africa with an army of mercenaries and spin doctors in tow to cash in on his newfound expertise.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a restaurateur from Putin’s native St. Petersburg, has emerged as an unlikely point man in Russia’s belated push to bolster its geopolitical might by rekindling Cold War ties across a largely underdeveloped region laden with untapped mineral wealth. Lacking the financial muscle of its main rivals, the U.S., Europe and China, Russia is carving out a niche by shoring up strongmen in unstable but potentially rich states who have a taste for Russian weaponry.
Prigozhin and his hodgepodge of contract soldiers and political operatives are offering security, arms training and electioneering services in exchange for mining rights and other opportunities, two people familiar with the matter said. He’s already active in or moving into 10 countries that Russia’s military already has relationships with: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.
Presidents of Russia and Turkey meet for talks in St Petersburg]
This spurt of activity comes as Putin prepares to host more than 50 leaders for the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019. It’s an event that will cement “Russia’s active presence in the region,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said before a sweep through the continent earlier this year.
The low-profile nature of Prigozhin’s businesses ensures some deniability for the Kremlin. Putin, who gave Prigozhin an award for his service to the state in 2014, this year compared his old ally’s international work to that of George Soros, the American billionaire financier who’s long been accused by the Kremlin of subverting governments at Washington’s behest.
“The Russians want influence with governments, they want economic access and they’re much more flexible—that’s their advantage,” said Peter Pham, head of the Washington-based Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. “It doesn’t cost very much to send a couple of hundred guys to shore up a president.”
Prigozhin, 57, didn’t respond to email and phone requests for comment via his Concord Catering company, and officials in the countries he’s targeting had no comment on his activities.
Prigozhin and Concord were among the three Russian businesses and 13 people Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted in February for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  A U.S. judge on Nov. 15 rejected a bid to dismiss the charges by another of Prigozhin’s indicted companies. 
Africa has been largely an afterthought for Putin, who came to power almost two decades ago focused on regaining Russia’s lost superpower status. After the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, Russia’s presence in Africa dwindled dramatically; now the region is a focus for Kremlin efforts to reassert its geopolitical prowess and open new markets for domestic companies hamstrung by Western sanctions.
Russian InfluenceMoscow has been ramping up military and political ties with African nations
As relations with the West continue to plumb new lows, Putin is finally pursuing a comprehensive strategy for developing commercial and security ties with the continent as a whole, according to Polina Slyusarchuk, who runs Intexpertise, an Africa-focused research group in St. Petersburg.
Russia has suffered setbacks, particularly in South Africa. President Cyril Ramaphosa froze his predecessor’s multibillion-dollar nuclear power project with Russia after he took office in February. But Putin is increasingly putting money behind the courtships, writing off some $20 billion of debt held by African countries last year.
More recently, Egypt won a $25 billion Russian loan to build its first nuclear power plant. And Russia is in talks with Eritrea to establish its first logistics hub on the Red Sea, not far from the Pentagon’s only permanent base in Africa and China’s first military facility abroad, both in Djibouti.
In March, Lavrov, Putin’s long-serving foreign minister, made a five-nation swing through Africa that included a stop in Zimbabwe, where Russian companies are involved in a $3 billion platinum-mining venture, the country’s biggest investment project. Prigozhin wasn’t far behind.
Prigozhin’s political consultants advised Emmerson Mnangagwa on his disputed victory in the July election to succeed Robert Mugabe, who turned Zimbabwe into an international pariah during his four-decade rule, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Mnangagwa’s main opponent accused “Russians” of helping his rival manipulate the polls. The ruling Zanu-PF party has denied any Russian involvement in the election.
Putin gained a military toehold in the heart of the continent early this year, after the UN issued a waiver for Russia to arm and defend the government of the Central African Republic. The CAR, which is mired in civil conflict, appealed for help after France, its former colonial master, suddenly ended a three-year peacekeeping mission.
“Like any normal businessman, Prigozhin is looking for the most lucrative places to invest his money”
The work of Prigozhin’s mercenary venture, known loosely in the Russian media as Wagner, has already led to gold and diamond concessions in both the CAR and Sudan, according to Russian and French media reports. Three Russian journalists were murdered in the CAR in July. They were investigating Prigozhin’s activities, according to exiled tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was funding their trip.
Prigozhin is now expanding his reach across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo, the largest country in Africa after Algeria and one of the world’s richest in minerals, the people said. The former Belgian colony is about to elect a new leader for the first time since 2001, when Joseph Kabila succeeded his slain father.
Kabila recently named a trusted retired general as his ambassador to Russia, tasking him with negotiating arms supplies and assistance, according to a Western official who asked not to be identified. The DRC said through its embassy in Moscow that Russia hasn’t yet supplied any weapons. It also denied local media reports that Russians are actively involved in the election.
If Kabila’s EU-sanctioned protégé wins as expected, then the DRC’s military ties with Russia will intensify, which in turn will lead to more opportunities for Russian companies, according to Jean-Jacques Wondo, a Congolese security analyst based in Brussels. China has invested heavily in the DRC, but Beijing is reportedly growing increasingly frustrated with Kabila’s shifting demands.
“Kabila is desperate for outside help,” said Martin Fayulu, an opposition candidate in the Dec. 23 poll. “It’s not surprising Russia is moving into the Congo, given our vast mineral wealth.”
Madagascar, the world’s biggest producer of vanilla and a holder of major deposits of nickel, cobalt and uranium, is another chaotic country where Putin and Prigozhin share an interest. A Kremlin envoy flew to the island in March for talks with then-president Hery Rajaonarimampianina.
Russian election consultants affiliated with Prigozhin are in the country amid a tight race for the presidency between two other former leaders that will end next month, one of the people familiar with his activities said. Russia has backed several candidates, according to Jean-Claude de L’Estrac, a former Mauritius foreign minister and expert on Indian Ocean territories. The Madagascar Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
In Guinea, Russia is supporting a bid by President Alpha Conde to scrap term limits so he can seek to stay in power after his mandate ends in 2020, said the Western official with knowledge of Russia-Africa ties. The African state is the single largest supplier of bauxite for Russian aluminum giant United Co. Rusal. Guinea Foreign Minister Mamadi Toure and government spokesman Aboubacar Sylla didn’t answer calls seeking comment. 
RUSSIA-GUINEA-DIPLOMACYAlpha Conde and Vladimir Putin
Moving into North Africa, Prigozhin attended talks this month between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls most of the eastern part of the oil-rich state. He’s providing military services to Haftar’s Libyan National Army in return for energy deals, two people familiar with the matter said. LNA spokesman Ahmed Mesmari didn’t answer repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Prigozhin’s private army, Wagner, which was sanctioned by the U.S. for its role in the 2014 Ukraine rebellion, drew international attention again in February, this time in Syria. As Bloomberg reported at the time, hundreds of its mercenaries were killed or wounded by U.S. forces as they advanced on a base held by Kurdish fighters. Wagner was trying to seize a nearby oil refinery for officials in Damascus who’d reportedly promised a share of future revenue.
“Like any normal businessman, Prigozhin is looking for the most lucrative places to invest his money,” said Irina Abramova, head of Russia’s state-funded Institute for African Studies in Moscow. “He thought, why shouldn’t I give it a go? And he should only be thanked for that if Africans benefit.”
— With assistance by Stepan Kravchenko, David Wainer, Samer Al-Atrush, Kamlesh Bhuckory, Godfrey Marawanyika, Samuel Gebre, Ougna Camara, Borges Nhamire, Alonso Soto, Pauline Bax, Candido Mendes, Paul Richardson, and Hayley Warren<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa</a>
libya?https://yyy.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/11/yevgeny-prigozhin-who-is-the-man-leading-russias-push-into-africa
Former hotdog seller became known as ‘Putin’s chef’ because of his Kremlin catering contacts
by Luke Harding
Tue 11 Jun 2019 07.31 EDTLast modified on Tue 11 Jun 2019 12.05 EDTThe man behind Russia’s push into Africa is a former hotdog seller who went on to become a billionaire and global Kremlin action man thanks to his close relations with Vladimir Putin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin grew up in Putin’s home city of Leningrad. He spent nine years in jail after being convicted by a Soviet court of robbery and other crimes. When he emerged from prison he decided to go into business, first opening a hotdog stall and then founding an elite restaurant.
The venture on a docked boat was a success. In 2001 Prigozhin personally served two guests who had stopped by for dinner: Russia’s new president, Putin, and Japan’s prime minister, Yoshiro Mori. Soon Prigozhin was doing the catering for Kremlin banquets and for Putin’s 2003 birthday party, earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef”.
On good terms with Russia’s elite, Prigozhin branched out. He won lucrative state contracts to supply food to Russian schoolchildren and to its soldiers. With money came an oligarch lifestyle: a palace in St Petersburg, a yacht, a private plane, a helipad.
It is Prigozhin’s activities on behalf of the state that have made him notorious. According to the US special counsel Robert Mueller, Prigozhin’s trolls working out of the Olgino area of St Petersburg interfered in the 2016 election. Prigozhin, senior employees and his company, Concord Catering, are all under US indictment.
Prigozhin is believed to be a funder of the Wagner group, a private military contractor. Hundreds of Russian mercenaries, some tied to Wagner, were reportedly killed in clashes with US forces during a doomed attempt to seize an oil refinery in Syria in February 2018. Other mercenaries have fought for Wagner in Ukraine.
Critics including the opposition leader Alexei Navalny have described Prigozhin’s rise as a parable of Russia under Putin. Prigozhin has grown rich because of his proximity to Russia’s forever ruler, Navalny alleges. He has nicknamed Prigozhin the “king of dislikes”.
Leaked documents paint a portrait of Prigozhin as a hyperactive businessman and micro-manager with a flair for logistics. As well as dispatching undercover political consultants to Africa, Prigozhin-linked companies have sent supplies of tea, coffee and pasta. These fuel the growing number of Russian personnel and military experts on the continent.
Prigozhin, 57, refuses to give interviews. He has denied that Wagner exists or that he ever ran a troll farm. Of the US indictment, he said last year: “I am not at all disappointed that I appear in this list. If they want to see the devil, let them.”<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin</a>Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Russian</a>: Евге́ний Ви́кторович Приго́жин; born 1 June 1961) is a Russian businessman<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-auto-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> with ties to Russian president <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin" title="Vladimir Putin" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Vladimir Putin</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a> Prigozhin was called "Putin’s chef" in an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press" title="Associated Press" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Associated Press</a> article because of Prigozhin's restaurants and catering businesses that hosted dinners which Vladimir Putin attended with foreign dignitaries.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a> Prigozhin controls "a network of companies," including three accused of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections" title="Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">interference in the 2016 United States elections</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-PrigozhinEmpirePNG-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a> Prigozhin is also accused of attempting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2018_United_States_elections" title="" style="background: none;">to influence the 2018 U.S. midterm elections</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-polygraph-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> Prigozhin, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_sanctioned_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis" title="List of people sanctioned during the Ukrainian crisis" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">his companies and associates</a> face economic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis" title="International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">sanctions</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_charges_brought_in_the_Special_Counsel_investigation(2017%E2%80%932019)" title="Criminal charges brought in the Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019)" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">criminal charges</a> in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">United States</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-polygraph-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a>
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</div><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Early_life" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Early life</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Restaurant_and_catering_career" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Restaurant and catering career</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Wagner_Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Wagner Group</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Internet_Research_Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Internet Research Agency</a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Spin_offs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4.1Spin offs</a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#US_Treasury_Department_sanctions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5US Treasury Department sanctions</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#US_criminal_charges" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6US criminal charges</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">7See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">8References</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Early life[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yevgeny_Prigozhin&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Early life" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Prigozhin was born in Leningrad (now <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg" title="Saint Petersburg" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Saint Petersburg</a>) on 1 June 1961, to Violetta Prigozhina (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: Виолетта Пригожина).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-TheRight-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-Fontaka160112-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> He graduated from an athletics boarding school in 1977 and was engaged in cross-country skiing.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-TheRight-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a>On 29 November 1979, Prigozhin was given a suspended sentence for stealing (in Leningrad). In 1981 he was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment under articles of robbery, fraud, and involving teenagers in prostitution. Prigozhin spent nine years in prison before he was released.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Restaurant and catering career</h2>In 1990, after his release, he and his stepfather set up a network to sell hot dogs.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:0-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> Soon, according a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">New York Times</a> interview with him, "the rubles were piling up faster than his mother could count them."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:1-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a> He also became a 15% stakeholder and manager of a "Contrast," started by Boris Spektr, a classmate from his boarding school, which was the first grocery store chain in Saint Petersburg. In 1995, when revenues began to fall, Prigozhin persuaded a director at Contrast, Kiril Ziminov, to open a restaurant with him. The two men opened the "Old Customs House" (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: Старая Таможня) in Saint Petersburg. In 1997, inspired by waterfront restaurants on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine" title="Seine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Seine</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris" title="Paris" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Paris</a>, Prigozhin and Ziminov spent $400,000 remodeling a rusting boat on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyatka_River" title="Vyatka River" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Vyatka River</a> and started the floating restaurant called New Island, which became one of the most fashionable dining spots in Saint Petersburg.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:0-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:1-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a> He said his patrons "wanted to see something new in their lives and were tired of just eating cutlets with vodka." In 2001, Prigozhin personally served food to Vladimir Putin and French president <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Chirac" title="Jacques Chirac" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jacques Chirac</a> when they dined at New Island." He also hosted US President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush</a> in 2002. In 2003, Putin celebrated his birthday at New Island.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:1-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a> By 2003, Prigozhin had left his business partners, established his own independent restaurants, and had become a confidante of Putin, apparently free to engage in illicit activities without fear of prosecution.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-InsideThe-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a>His company, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Catering" class="mw-redirect" title="Concord Catering" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Concord Catering</a>, got hundreds of millions in government contracts for feeding school children and government workers.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-InsideThe-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[11]</a> In 2012 he got a contract to supply meals to the Russian military worth $1.2 billion over one year. Some of the profits from this contract are alleged to have been used to start and fund the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency" title="Internet Research Agency" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Internet Research Agency</a>.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">citation needed</a>]In 2012 he moved his family into a St. Petersburg compound with a basketball court and a helicopter pad. He has a private jet and a 115-foot yacht.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-InsideThe-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[11]</a>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corruption_Foundation" title="Anti-Corruption Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Anti-Corruption Foundation</a> accused Prigozhin of corrupt business practices. They estimated his illegal wealth to be worth more than one billion rubles.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Wagner Group</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group" title="Wagner Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wagner Group</a></div>Prigozhin has been linked to a mercenary group known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group" title="Wagner Group" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Wagner Group</a> which has been involved in various actions as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_contractor" class="mw-redirect" title="Private military contractor" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">private military contractor</a>. On 7 February 2018, Wagner attacked US backed Kurdish forces in Syria in an attempt to take an oil field. Wagner and their allies suffered dozens of casualties when the US responded with airpower.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post" title="The Washington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Washington Post</a> reported Prigozhin was in close contact with Russian and Syrian military officials before the February 7 action.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-CNN-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a> The connections between Prigozhin and Wagner have been the subject of press coverage in Russia and the United States. Wagner is led by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Utkin" class="mw-redirect" title="Dmitry Utkin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dmitry Utkin</a>, who was once head of security for Prigozhin. A person by the name of Dmitry Utkin was also listed as Director General of Prigozhin's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management</a>. Since 2011, Prigozhin's mother Violetta Prigozhin has been the owner of Concord.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-Fontaka160112-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> Concord and Prigozhin denied any connection to Wagner,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-auto-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> however in November 2016 the company confirmed to Russian media that the same Dmitry Utkin leading the Wagner Group was now in charge of Prigozhin's food businesses.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-uawire.org-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> Wagner has also been reported to be fighting in eastern Ukraine with pro-Russia forces.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-uawire.org-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a>On 30 July 2018, three Russian journalists working for a news organization often critical of the Russian government were murdered in the Central African Republic, where they had been attempting to investigate the activities of the Wagner Group in that country. The Russian government had begun a collaboration with the president of the Central African Republic in October 2017. In its response to the killings, Russia's foreign ministry stressed that the dead journalists had been traveling without official accreditation.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-CAR-killings-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Internet Research Agency</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency" title="Internet Research Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency</a></div>Prigozhin has been connected to and is alleged to have financed and directed<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-CNN180223-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a> a network of companies including a company called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency" title="Internet Research Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency</a> Ltd., (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: ООО «Агентство интернет-исследований»)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-mr7.ru_30.05.2014-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management and Consulting</a> Company and one other related company.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-auto-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> The three companies are accused of Internet trolling and attempting to influence the 2016 US presidential elections and other activity to influence political events outside Russia.Russian journalist Andrey Soshnikov reported that Alexey Soskovets, who had participated in Russian youth political community, was directly connected to the offices of Internet Research in Olgino. His company, North-Western Service Agency, won 17 or 18 (according to different sources) contracts for organizing celebrations, forums and sport competitions for authorities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg" title="Saint Petersburg" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Saint Petersburg</a>. The agency was the only participant in half of those bids. In the summer of 2013 the agency won a tender for providing freight services for participants of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seliger(forum)" title="Seliger (forum)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Seliger</a> camp.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a>Despite links to Alexei Soskovets, Nadejda Orlova, deputy head of the Committee for Youth Policy in Saint Petersburg, disputed connection between her institution and the trolling offices.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]<h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;">Spin offs</h3>Campaigns against opposition in 2013 involved <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Bykov" title="Dmitry Bykov" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dmitry Bykov</a> and the then head of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIA_Novosti" title="RIA Novosti" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">RIA Novosti</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Mironyuk" title="Svetlana Mironyuk" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Svetlana Mironyuk</a>, while a homepage claiming to fight fake news (Gazeta O Gazetah) was used to spread fake news.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">US Treasury Department sanctions</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis" title="International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis</a></div>On 20 December 2016, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Treasury_Department" class="mw-redirect" title="US Treasury Department" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">US Treasury Department</a> designated Prigozhin pursuant to E.O.13661 for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_sanctioned_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis" title="List of people sanctioned during the Ukrainian crisis" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">sanctions</a> for providing support to senior officials of the Russian Federation.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-Ukraine-EO13661-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-US161220-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a>In June 2017 US sanctions were imposed on one of Prigozhin's companies, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management and Consulting</a>, in connection with the war in Eastern Ukraine.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-uawire.org-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-US170620-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[25]</a>On 28 January 2018, the US Treasury Department also designated Evro Polis Ltd for sanctions. Evro Polis is a Russian company that has contracted with the Government of Syria to protect Syrian oil fields in exchange for a 25 percent share in oil and gas production from the fields. The company was designated for being owned or controlled by Yevgeniy Prigozhin. The sanctions require that any property or interests in property of the designated persons in the possession or control of U.S. persons or within the United States must be blocked. Additionally, transactions by U.S. persons involving these persons (including companies) are generally prohibited.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-US180126-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">US criminal charges</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation(2017%E2%80%932019)" title="Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019)</a></div><table role="presentation" class="mbox-small plainlinks sistersitebox" style="clear: right; float: right; margin: 4px 0px 4px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; width: 238px; line-height: 1.25em; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);"><tbody><tr><td class="mbox-image" style="border: none; padding: 2px 0px 2px 0.9em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png" decoding="async" class="noviewer" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/57px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/76px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="410" data-file-height="430" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="38" height="40" /></td><td class="mbox-text plainlist" style="border: none; padding: 0.25em 0.9em; width: 157.844px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikisource" title="Wikisource" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wikisource</a> has original text related to this article:<div style="margin-left: 10px;"><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency_Indictment" class="extiw" title="wikisource:Internet Research Agency Indictment" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency Indictment</a></div></td></tr></tbody></table>On 16 February 2018, Prigozhin, the Internet Research Agency, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management</a>, another related company, and other connected Russian individuals were indicted by a U.S. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury" title="Grand jury" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">grand jury</a>. He was charged with funding and organizing operations for the purpose of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections" title="Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">interference with the U.S. political and electoral processes</a>, including the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election" title="2016 United States presidential election" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2016 presidential election</a>, and other crimes including identity theft.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[28]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">See also[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yevgeny_Prigozhin&action=edit&section=8&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: See also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(" w="w" skins="skins" vector="Vector" images="images" bullet-icon.svg="bullet-icon.svg" f1="f1" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Khusyaynova" title="Elena Khusyaynova" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Elena Khusyaynova</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections" title="Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_investigations_into_Trump_and_Russia(2018)(disambiguation)" class="mw-redirect mw-disambig" title="Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2018) (disambiguation)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (2018) (disambiguation)</a></li></ul><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">References</h2>AN 119The story of the world today is the rise of right-wing populism, or so we are told. It’s the story of Donald Trump, of Brexit, of rising nationalism in continental Europe — especially in the east — as well as almost all of the former Soviet Union. But stories can change quickly. Whatever happened to “The End of History”? Or the War on Terror? The Great Recession? Or the Arab Spring? Who knows what the story will be next? Perhaps it’s already being written in Sudan, with echoes of so many other stories folded into it.<div class="p1_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Almost eight years to the day after the Arab Spring began in Tunisia with the startling overthrow of the 23-year regime of President Ben Ali, the current Sudan uprising began in the city of Atbara, a railroad union stronghold. That was on Dec. 19, and protests quickly spread nationwide. A month later, Sudan’s 29-year ruler, President Omar al-Bashir — <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashirhttps:/www.icc-cpi.int/darfur/albashir" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">who has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court</a> — is barely clinging to power, while American media, not to mention the U.S. government, has largely ignored the entire situation.“All residents of Atbara are now on the streets,” one eyewitness, Adel Abdel-Latif, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66796" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">told Sudan Tribune</a> last month as the uprising began. “He pointed out that the demonstrators chanted slogans such as ‘Peaceful, Peaceful against the Thieves,’ saying the police and army didn’t interfere to disperse or arrest the protestors,” the publication reported.<div class="p3_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The story we’re missing is historic, according to Jonathan Hutson, who helped expose mass human rights violations in Sudan from 2010 to 2014 — documenting 46 village burnings and locating eight apparent mass graves — as the architect of George Clooney’s <a href="https://www.satsentinel.org/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Satellite Sentinel Project</a>.<div class="p4_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“What we have is the Western media largely misunderstanding or ignoring a revolution in a Putin-aligned African country, ruled by an Islamic theocracy, where the resistance is committed to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion,”  Hutson told Salon. Reports of food riots vastly understate the seriousness of events, and Russian involvement with paramilitary troops (reportedly under the direction of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Yevgeny Prigozhin, aka “Putin’s chef”</a>) has failed to register as echoing the predatory pattern already seen in the Ukraine, Crimea and Syria.<div class="p5_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“News reporting on Sudan has finally begun to highlight the ongoing economic collapse of the past seven years,” veteran Sudan observer <a href="https://sudanreeves.org/2018/12/24/the-failure-of-international-news-reporting-on-sudans-economy-2011-2018/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Eric Reeves wrote on Dec. 24,</a> but even so “there is remarkable superficiality and failure to look with any historical depth at how the present catastrophe began. … Priorities in the national budget have been wildly skewed for decades toward the military and security services, with only very small amounts devoted to health, education, and the crucial agricultural sector. Arable land has been sold or leased for decades in order to raise cash for a kleptocratic regime.” In short, al-Bashir’s political affinity to Putin’s Russia are profound.<div class="p6_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As for the Sudanese people, it’s not that they’re imitating the Arab Spring — it’s really the other way around: Civil uprisings in Sudan have <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2014/10/20/50-years-on-remembering-sudans-october-revolution-by-willow-berridge/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">twice toppled dictatorships</a>, first in 1964 and again in 1985. “The popular uprising has become one of the political norms that Sudanese resort to in redefining their social contract with the state,” <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66944" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">noted Luka Kuol</a>, a Sudanese professor of security studies.<div class="p7_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Sudan escaped the first wave of Arab Spring uprisings in part because the government learned from those previous examples: It exploited regional, racial, ethnic and religious divisions, broke the power of professional unions and keeping the army dispersed outside Khartoum, the capital city, among other measures. But the government’s continued kleptocratic misrule has pushed Sudan past the breaking point, and al-Bashir’s old tricks no longer seem to work.<div class="p8_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Atbara demonstrations spread quickly despite a sometimes violent response. “The numbers of peaceful demonstrators in Atbara are increasing dramatically and the city is in full civil disobedience,” the opposition youth group Sudan Change Now <a href="https://twitter.com/Sudanchangenow/status/1075362750279376897" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">tweeted</a> on Dec. 19, along with a 57-second video of a loud but peaceful march. Sudan Tribune reported that <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66800" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">eight people were killed</a> on the second day of protests. Barely a month later, the al-Bashir regime appears doomed. The more demonstrators have been killed, injured or arrested, the more the movement has swelled, and al-Bashir’s attempts to divide it along racial and ethnic lines have failed.<div class="p9_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an inspiring and informative overview, “<a href="https://500wordsmag.com/sudan-news/the-chants-of-sudan-uprising/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">The Chants of the Sudan Uprising</a>,” Wa’el Jubara writes about the regime’s “sick and naive divide-and-conquer attempt” to blame the protests “on one of the armed rebel movements in the West,” conflating them with “peaceful, unorganised (politically) citizens” from Darfur in the West, whom they arrested. “The next day, Sudanese people from all walks of life and origins went out again, calling out the regime on its poor racist tactics,” Jubara wrote. “They called out the failed conspiracy of Al Bashir and said, ‘يا عنصري مغرور كل البلد دارفور‘, loosely translated to ‘You [Al Bashir] are racist and arrogant, we are all Darfur.’”<div class="p10_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The current demonstrations are unprecedented, in terms of scale, persistence, intensity, and geographical reach,” Adil Babikir, a U.K.-based Sudanese translator, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66930" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">wrote in Sudan Tribune</a> on Jan. 18. “The momentum is building up, with simultaneous rallies staged in many cities across the country. The revolutionary mood is at its peak. New patriotic songs are hitting the social media platforms every day. Some of these are originally folkloric wedding songs reworded with the themes of the revolution.”<div class="p11_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In the midst of all this, on Dec. 31, Hutson posted a <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHutson/status/1079952769178632193" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">33-tweet thread</a> exposing the Russian presence in Sudan with photos and information provided by activists on the ground. This information on the “illegal” Russian incursion was information further <a href="https://twitter.com/Amjedfarid/status/1080900965941813253" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">developed and promoted by Sudan Change Now</a>, as well as <a href="https://citeam.org/are-ru-mercenaries-suppressing-the-sudan-protests/?lang=en" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">by the Russia-based Conflict Intelligence Team</a>.<div class="p12_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Russian forces in Sudan are apparently or probably there in the guise of Prigozhin’s paramilitary Wagner Group (aka PMC Wagner), which was <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/pages/sm0114.aspx" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in 2017</a> for its involvement in Ukraine. Prigozhin, the now-infamous Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg and two related firms he controls <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0312" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">were also sanctioned in March 2018</a> for their role in 2016 election interference on behalf of Donald Trump.<div class="p13_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“As police fired tear gas and live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators in Khartoum, wounding at least four people, Sudanese observers on the ground wondered about the significance of Russian military trucks spotted in the capital,” Hutson began.<div class="p14_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson initially stopped short of definitively identifying PMC Wagner. But the group’s presence in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa was already known, if not commonly discussed. In November, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-11-20/putin-chef-yevgeny-prigozhin-is-now-meddling-in-africa" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Bloomberg reported</a> that Prigozhin was “already active in or moving into 10 countries that Russia’s military already has relationships with: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Libya, Madagascar, Angola, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Central African Republic.”<div class="p15_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-journalists-editor-says-killed-for-investigating-wagner-group-2018-8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Last summer</a>, three Russian journalists were killed while investigating Wagner in the Central African Republic on behalf of exiled Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky. A week after Hutson’s tweet-storm, <a href="https://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article66883" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sudan Times confirmed Wagner’s presence</a> in the current conflict, citing a source within Sudan’s security force.<div class="p16_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Hutson noted that Wagner “guards Sudanese gold, uranium, and diamond mines, as well as atomic energy facilities. Russian media have reported that Wagner trains Sudanese armed forces.” He identified Wagner’s typical vehicle as “a light-brown, Ural-4320, all-wheel-drive, two-door cab, 6×6 truck in troop transport mode, similar to trucks used by the Russian military, and by Russian private military contractors.” (In a <a href="https://twitter.com/JonHutson/status/1083480882957205504" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">later thread</a>, he explained in detail how he identified the trucks.)<div class="p17_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson provided some background on Sudan’s Russia connection, noting that on Nov. 23, 2017, al-Bashir met with Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. Reportedly “Bashir asked Putin to protect Sudan from ‘aggressive acts of the United States.’ In return, Bashir promised Putin that Sudan could serve as Russia’s ‘key to Africa.’”<div class="p18_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson also described some earlier activity in Sudan. “Radio Dabanga (<a href="https://twitter.com/Radiodabanga" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">@RadioDabanga</a>) reported in March 2018 that about 500 Russian armed forces appeared in the Um Dafug area of South Darfur, which borders on the Central African Republic.” At the same time, “across the border in CAR, the Wagner Group was defending mining interests.”<div class="p19_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Four months after that, the three Russian journalists working for Khodorkovsky were killed, amid disputed claims of who was responsible. Ten days after Hutson’s tweet, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/report-links-journalists-murder-africa-russian-mercenaries-investigating1/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">the Telegraph reported damning evidence that Wagner itself was responsible</a>, based on findings from <a href="https://www.khodorkovsky.com/dossier-center/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Khodorkovsky’s Dossier Center</a>, including cell phone records and other documents connecting the driver to Prigozhin. “The journalists were under the control of people from Yevgeny Prigozhin’s structures starting from the preparation stage,” according to the Dossier Center.<div class="p20_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hutson has speculated that “the relationships between Putin, Prigozhin, the Internet Research Agency, the Wagner Group and Trump” could help explain the U.S. government’s relative silence on the Sudan uprising. More recently, on Jan. 23, the State Department finally issued a three-paragraph <a href="https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2019/01/288533.htm" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">statement of “concern,”</a> stating that “A new, more positive relationship between the United States and Sudan requires meaningful political reform and clear, sustained progress on respect for human rights.”<div class="p21_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In fairness, America’s hands-off attitude might not have much to do with Putin. Like al-Bashir and the Sudanese regime, the Russian president may simply be taking advantage of long-standing pernicious habits and attitudes. That’s the picture suggested by Justin Lynch at the Daily Beast, in a recent article asking“<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-is-sudans-genocidal-regime-a-cia-favorite" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Why is Sudan’s Genocidal Regime a CIA Favorite?</a>”:<div class="p22_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">Although Sudan has been <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-sponsors-sudan" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">listed</a> as a state sponsor of terror since 1993 and the U.S. has accused al-Bashir more than once of genocide for his government’s actions in Darfur, cooperation between the two countries has been close on particular issues that Washington sees as a priority, particularly the fight against terrorist jihadis.<div class="p23_28" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote>This remained true, Lynch reports, even after Sudan dramatically reduced its counterterrorism collaboration in 2015.<div class="p24_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">As one of the last acts of the Obama administration in January 2017, the United States began a five-track process to restore relations that depend on humanitarian access, stopping violence and counter-terrorism collaboration. That process has expanded under the Trump administration, and in late-October the United States entered a second re-engagement with Sudan.<div class="p25_28" style="font-style: italic; box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></blockquote>A few weeks later, the Sudan uprising began. And America has watched from the sidelines.<div class="p26_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For all the talk about how disruptive and anomalous Trump’s presidency is, and for all the justified concern about how compromised he might be by his Russian entanglements, the main impediment to America doing the right thing to support the people of Sudan may simply be short-sighted, sclerotic institutional continuity, just as it was during the Arab Spring.<div class="p27_28" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We are right to worry about the future of democracy at home. But the Sudan uprising should remind us that we live in a larger world that we have often carelessly misshaped with our misguided actions and misplaced fears, even as we have also helped shape it with our ideals. In his famous 1967 address “<a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Beyond Vietnam</a>,” explaining his opposition to the war, Martin Luther King Jr. said that “our greatest defense against communism is to take offensive action in behalf of justice.” The same could be said about the various threats facing us today — and that’s what the Sudan uprising is calling on us to do.<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/will-mueller-indict-russians-over-the-dnc-hacking-next/">https://www.thenation.com/article/will-mueller-indict-russians-over-the-dnc-hacking-next/</a>no lnxWill Mueller Indict Russians Over the DNC Hacking Next?Dutch evidence could help the special counsel target the Cozy Bear hackers.By Bob Dreyfuss FEBRUARY 21, 2018fbtwmailPrintRussia Troll FarmA view of the building known as the “troll farm” in St. Petersburg, Russia, February 17, 2018. (AP Photo / Naira Davlashyan)
Now that Robert Mueller, the Russiagate special counsel, has indicted 13 Russian actors—including the shadowy Internet Research Agency, the “troll farm” that used social media to help elect Donald Trump, as well as Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Russian oligarch and friend of Vladimir Putin—for meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, could his next act be to indict Russians involved in the hacking attack against the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta? Important evidence, including secrets obtained by Dutch intelligence, points in that direction.
RUSSIAGATETHE RUSSIAGATE INTELLIGENCE WARS: WHAT WE DO AND DON’T KNOWBob Dreyfuss
TRUMP’S ALL-OUT ATTACK ON THE RULE OF LAWBob Dreyfuss
GLENN SIMPSON HAS GIVEN US A RUSSIAGATE ROAD MAPBob Dreyfuss
STEVE BANNON WADES INTO RUSSIAGATEBob Dreyfuss
SECRETS OF THE TRUMP-RUSSIA DOSSIERBob Dreyfuss
In this space last week, I reported that as early as December 2016, just a few weeks after Trump’s Electoral College victory, The New York Times informed us that US intelligence agencies had identified specific individuals from Russian intelligence who’d overseen the hackers from APT28 and APT29, better known as, respectively, Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear. In other words, for more than a year now, and probably going back much longer, the US intelligence community—including the FBI, and therefore the investigators in the Office of the Special Counsel, too—has probably known who inside the GRU, Russia’s military-intelligence agency, and the SVR, its foreign-intelligence service, was responsible for the two bears, for the DNC and Podesta hacks, and presumably for the release of the stolen e-mails to WikiLeaks and other outlets in 2016.
In November 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI and the Justice Department had identified at least half a dozen implicated Russians, and that the department is preparing to charge them with criminal acts as a result. “The Justice Department has identified more than six members of the Russian government involved in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computers and swiping sensitive information that became public during the 2016 presidential election, according to people familiar with the investigation,” said the Journal report, by Aruna Viswanatha and Del Quentin Wilber. “Prosecutors and agents have assembled evidence to charge the Russian officials and could bring a case next year, these people said. Discussions about the case are in the early stages, they said.” Could bring a case next year—meaning, 2018.

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Neither the 2016 Times report nor the Journal’s story in November said much about how the United States might have identified the Russians. Now, thanks to a report in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant by Huib Modderkolk, it appears that as early as 2014 Holland’s General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) had hacked into Cozy Bear’s innermost workings—including, astonishingly, its internal security cameras. And AIVD spent as long as the next two and half years watching Cozy Bear do its dirty work, including the DNC break-in. “Unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything,” reported de Volkskrant.
In what follows, I’ll report many of the details contained in the Dutch paper’s report. Some points to begin with, however:
First, it’s been widely reported for more than a year that the CIA, FBI, and NSA learned some of what they know about Russia’s 2016 election interference from allied intelligence services, including the Australians, the British, and the Dutch. (For instance, it was the Australians, we now know, who tipped off the US intelligence community when George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign aide, drunkenly blabbed to an Australian diplomat that he’d learned in March 2016 the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, including “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos is now cooperating with Mueller under a plea agreement.) So it seems plausible that if the Dutch had intel about Cozy Bear, they shared it with the CIA under the usual allied-intelligence protocols.
Second, Mueller’s sweeping indictment last week of Russians involved in a pro-Trump social-media offensive generated by worker bees at the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg reveals that Mueller can build his criminal charges based on what we must assume is secret intelligence from wiretaps and electronic intercepts. (The 37-page indictment contains excerpts of internal communications from within the Russian conspiracy.) That means the material that was presumably shared with the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI by the Dutch can be used to assemble a criminal case against Russians involved in the DNC hacking, too. As important as Russia’s illegal social-media campaign was, it was the DNC-Podesta hack that led to nonstop headlines in the mainstream media citing those hacked (and then leaked) e-mails from mid-summer of 2016 right up to election day.
Third, Mueller’s indictment of the 13 Russians proves beyond any doubt that he’s not just looking at possible collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice by Team Trump, as crucial as those issues may prove to be. He’s also looking at Russiagate’s Original Sin, namely, Moscow’s meddling in 2016, including the DNC-Podesta hack, regardless of whether Trump, his family, his advisers, or his campaign aides had anything to do with them. For that reason alone, there is no doubt that a fair number of Russian operatives in St. Petersburg and Moscow are worried about not only being indicted but being sanctioned, which could affect their finances as well as their ability to travel outside Russia.
And finally, all parties involved—including Mueller, the congressional committees, and the US intelligence community itself—should start releasing the classified intelligence that pertains to Russiagate. It can be scrubbed of “sources and methods,” of course. But, as Leonid Bershidsky and Eli Lake have argued separately in Bloomberg View, the more secrets declassified, the better. For one thing, it’ll quiet the conspiracy theorists.
So, with all that in mind, let’s look at what de Volkskrant reported.
According to the paper, the Dutch AIVD and the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) cyber operations team, under the umbrella of what the Dutch call the Joint Sigint Cyber Unit, managed to penetrate directly into Cozy Bear’s internal computer network. That network, according to de Volkskrant, was housed “in a space in a university building near Red Square.” The actual location of Cozy Bear’s operational facility had not previously been disclosed.If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nation’s work.
 De Volkskrant notes that the Dutch turned their spies onto the Russian hackers just around the time that a Malaysian airliner, Flight MH-17, was shot down over Ukraine on July 17, 2014, by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. Many Dutch citizens died aboard Flight MH-17, giving AIVD a special motive to intensify its counterintelligence work against Moscow. By November 2014, AIVD began tracking Cozy Bear’s attempts to hack into the US State Department, says the paper, and the Dutch quietly informed the NSA about what they’d learned.
By hacking into Cozy Bear, AIVD gained enormous amounts of live, real-time intelligence, allowing them to “trace the Russian hackers’ every step.” In the words of de Volkskrant: “That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents.… And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.”
AIVD acquired granular detail, including photographs of Russian operatives coming and going. “The group’s composition varies, usually about ten people are active. The entrance is in a curved hallway. A security camera records who enters and who exits the room. The AIVD hackers manage to gain access to that camera. Not only can the intelligence service now see what the Russians are doing, they can also see who’s doing it. Pictures are taken of every visitor. In Zoetermeer [AIVD’s headquarters, the Dutch equivalent of the CIA’s Langley], these pictures are analyzed and compared to known Russian spies,” reported de Volkskrant. “They’ve acquired information that will later prove to be vital.”
If this report is accurate, and so far it hasn’t been challenged, it appears that Mueller and the FBI—relying not only on AIVD’s identification of GRU and SVR officers but also on the CIA’s facial-recognition technology and its files on Russian spies—can use those IDs to make a case for an indictment paralleling the just-announced indictment of the Internet Research Agency and its dozen-plus operatives. The report in de Volkskrant doesn’t mean that the information shared with the United States by AIVD is the only source that identifies the Russians involved. If the underlying intelligence that went into the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment is released, we’ll learn a great deal more about what those other sources might have been.
Following the release of Mueller’s indictment of the 13 Russians on Friday, Trump descended into a paroxysm of unhinged tweets, with 10 over a 13-hour period. He attacked “Liddle Adam Schiff” (the Democratic congressman on the House intelligence committee), blamed the FBI for the Florida high-school massacre because the bureau is allegedly too obsessed with Russiagate, and claimed that he has never said that Russia didn’t meddle in the election, though he’s said exactly that countless times. Trump attacked his own national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, who said in a speech in Munich that the evidence for Russia’s interference is “incontrovertible.” And, weirdly, Trump said that because of Russiagate, “they are laughing their asses off in Moscow.”
There’s more to come. One who may know a lot more than most of us, since he prepared the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, is James Clapper, President Obama’s former director of national intelligence. Appearing Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Clapper warned that we should be expecting additional indictments from Mueller.
Clapper first noted that last Friday’s indictment said nothing about Trump-Russia collusion. “The indictment very—as was the deputy attorney general’s statement, was very precisely and carefully worded, that the indictment itself reflected no collusion, in the same way that it acknowledged that the members of the Trump campaign were unwitting participants in this,” said Clapper.
But he added: “This is not to say there weren’t. And I do think there are other shoes to drop here besides this indictment, which, by the way, I think, does—did serve to validate with a higher evidentiary bar the intelligence community assessment that was rendered in January of 2017.”
There are, indeed, plenty of other shoes that might begin dropping from the centipede that is Russiagate, and Clapper suggested that among them might be news about “financial entanglements [of] the Trump Organization.”
But if the Dutch intel is correct, at the top of the list may be an indictment of more Russian “specialists” over the DNC break-in and leaking.
Bob DreyfussBob Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor, is an independent investigative journalist who specializes in politics and national security.<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/midterms-russian-interference_us_5bca231be4b0d38b5877e5f3">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/midterms-russian-interference_us_5bca231be4b0d38b5877e5f3</a>
A 44-year-old Russian national working for a Russian oligarch helped run a social media campaign to spread distrust about the American political system ahead of the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/2018-elections" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:10;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="1" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">2018 elections</a>, federal prosecutors charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Friday.Prosecutors say Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova of St. Petersburg, Russia, worked as the chief accountant of “Project Lakhta,” the type of operation that has previously been described as a “troll farm.” The project was allegedly funded by oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and two of his companies. Prigozhin was one of <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russian-indicted-us-election_us_5a871b70e4b05c2bcaca8989" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:10;elm:context_link;itc:0" data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="2" data-v9y="1" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgb(13, 190, 152) 0px -2px 0px inset;">13 Russians indicted</a> in the special counsel’s investigation in February on charges of interfering in the 2016 election.“The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions,” G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement.Federal prosecutors, who said they received “exceptional cooperation” from Facebook and Twitter, said the campaign focused on “a wide variety of topics, including immigration, gun control and the Second Amendment, the Confederate flag, race relations, LGBT issues, the Women’s March, and the NFL national anthem debate.”“Members of the conspiracy took advantage of specific events in the United States to anchor their themes, including the shootings of church members in Charleston, South Carolina, and concert attendees in Las Vegas; the Charlottesville ‘Unite the Right’ rally and associated violence; police shootings of African-American men; as well as the personnel and policy decisions of the current U.S. presidential administration,” the DOJ said in its press release.The criminal complaint says Khusyaynova managed Project Lakhta’s finances, controlling expenses like “expenditures for activists, advertisements on social media platforms, registration of domain names, the purchase of proxy servers, and ‘promoting news postings on social networks.’” Project Lakhta’s total budget from January 2016 through June 2018 was allegedly $35 million, but the Justice Department said only a portion of that money was directed toward U.S. operations.Prosecutors unveiled the charges shortly after the Justice Department, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on foreign interference in the 2018 elections. The statement said there was no evidence of “a compromise of disruption of infrastructure that would enable adversaries to prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt our ability to tally votes in the midterm elections,” but that foreign powers were seeking to “exploit America’s free and open political system.”link to doc indictment]<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/13/mueller-legitimate-court-ruling-774888">https://www.politico.com/story/2018/08/13/mueller-legitimate-court-ruling-774888</a>no lnx
Trump-appointed judge upholds Mueller's legitimacyBy KYLE CHENEY 08/13/2018 10:29 AM EDT
A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump ruled Monday that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe is constitutional and legitimate, rejecting an effort by a Russian company -- accused of financing a massive political influence operation in the United States -- to stamp out the ongoing investigation.
Judge Dabney Friedrich, who Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. last year, is the fourth judge to quash efforts to upend Mueller's legitimacy and cancel his investigation. Judges overseeing the two trials of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- D.C. judge Amy Berman Jackson and Eastern District of Virginia Judge T.S. Ellis -- rejected Manafort's bid to invalidate Mueller.
Earlier this month, the D.C. circuit's Chief Judge Beryl Howell issued a lengthy ruling rejecting similar legal arguments offered by Andrew Miller, a longtime associate of Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was attempting to beat back a subpoena to testify before Mueller's grand jury. Miller's lawyer, Paul Kamenar, told POLITICO on Monday morning that Miller still intends to appeal the decision. Last week, Miller was held in contempt of court for again ignoring the grand jury subpoena, a move Kamenar said was necessary in order to pursue his appeal.
Mueller indicted the Russian company, Concord Management, in February along with 13 individual Russians — including Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The indictment alleges that Concord, Prigozhin's firm, funded and organized an army of internet trolls, the purchase of social media ads and even directed operatives to travel to the United States to set up political rallies. Their goal, Mueller alleged, was to sow discord in the 2016 U.S. election and ultimately assist Donald Trump's candidacy.Concord pleaded not guilty to the charges and though the indicted Russians aren't expected to participate in the proceedings, the firm tapped American attorneys to represent it in court, a move seen as an attempt to gain insight into the evidence Mueller has gathered.
Though Friedrich upheld Mueller's probe, she did offer a significant nod to his critics: that no laws "explicitly authorize" Mueller's appointment. Rather, she concluded that Watergate-era Supreme Court precedent -- as well as Howell's recent ruling -- found that the Justice Department had the authority. They concluded this "without analyzing specifically how any individual provision combination of provisions accomplished this," Friedrich wrote.
Concord's lawyers had argued that Mueller's appointment was flawed at multiple levels -- and at its core was unconstitutional. Mueller was appointed last year by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But Mueller's power is so vast, Concord contended, that he should have been subject to presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, rather than treated as an "inferior" officer who may be appointed and supervised by the attorney general. Though Mueller, in theory, reports to Rosenstein, Concord contended that Justice Department regulations prevent Rosenstein from overturning many of Mueller's decisions, giving him an authority that should only be permitted for individuals appointed by the president.
<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-troll-farm-13-suspects-indicted-for-interference-in-us-election/2018/02/16">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-troll-farm-13-suspects-indicted-for-interference-in-us-election/2018/02/16</a>/2504de5e-1342-11e8-9570-29c9830535e5_story.html?utm_term=.134288596a93</div><div>
</div><div><div>National Security</div><div>Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted in 2016 election interference</div><div>
</div><div>By Devlin Barrett, Sari Horwitz and Rosalind S. Helderman</div><div>February 16</div><div>
</div><div>The Justice Department’s special counsel announced a sweeping indictment Friday of a notorious Russian group of Internet trolls — charging 13 individuals and three companies with a long-running scheme to criminally interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.</div><div>
</div><div>The Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg, was named in the indictment as the hub of an ambitious effort to trick Americans online into following and promoting Russian-fed propaganda that pushed 2016 voters toward then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and away from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.</div><div>
</div><div>The indictment charges that the Russian efforts began in 2014, when three of the Russian conspirators visited 10 states, gathering intelligence about U.S. politics. Officials say that as the operation progressed, the suspects also engaged in extensive online conversations with Americans who became unwitting tools of the Russian efforts. The indictment does not accuse the Russian government of involvement in the scheme, nor does it claim that it succeeded in swaying any votes.</div><div>
</div><div>Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein said the suspects “allegedly conducted what they called ‘information warfare against the United States,’ with the stated goal of spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”</div><div>
</div><div>The suspects, Rosenstein said, “took extraordinary steps to make it appear that they were ordinary American political activists.”</div><div>
</div><div>On Twitter, President Trump declared that he was vindicated.</div><div>
</div><div>“Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” he wrote. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong — no collusion!”</div><div>
</div><div>[Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked]</div><div>
</div><div>The 37-page indictment includes some startling accusations against the election trolls, including that when news broke in September that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III was investigating their activity, one of them wrote: “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.” The person, named as Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina, allegedly added: “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”</div><div>
</div><div>Such accusations suggest that Mueller’s investigators were able to penetrate deep into the internal communications of the St. Petersburg troll farm, but the indictment does not spell out how they gained such access.</div><div>
</div><div>Friday’s indictment provides the most exhaustive description to date of allegations about Russian interference in the election, describing an 80-person team with specialists in graphics, data analysis and search-engine optimization that set out to con Americans online.</div><div>
</div><div>At times, they paid people to engage in political theater, such as paying for the construction of “a cage large enough to hold an actress depicting Clinton in a prison uniform,” according to the charges. It is against U.S. law for non-Americans to make expenditures or disbursements in an effort to affect the outcome of a U.S. election.</div><div>
</div><div>'It is spooky'</div><div>
</div><div>Prosecutors said the Russians, using fake identities, contacted Trump campaign staffers in Florida offering to hold rallies to support Trump. Susie Wiles, who was co-chair of the Trump campaign in Florida in August 2016 and later became the campaign’s chief Florida staffer, said no campaign official was aware of the Russian effort.</div><div>
</div><div>“It’s not the way I do the business; it’s not the way the Trump campaign in Florida did business,” she said. “It is spooky. It is awful. It makes you look over your shoulder. It shouldn’t happen. I’m anxious for this to be uncovered so this never happens again.”</div><div>
</div><div>In Congress, politicians in both parties condemned the alleged Russian interference.</div><div>
</div><div>“We have known that Russians meddled in the election, but these indictments detail the extent of the subterfuge,” House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said in a statement. He accused the indicted Russians of “a sinister and systematic attack on our political system.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Today’s announcement underscores why we need to follow the facts and work to protect the integrity of future elections,” he added.</div><div>
</div><div>But that very task — taking steps to prevent future election meddling — has thus far stymied the leaders and committees on Capitol Hill investigating Russian actions. In the House, the parties are openly accusing one another of prioritizing political attacks over taking real steps to protect the country.</div><div>
</div><div>“Today’s indictments should lay to rest any assertions by President Trump that the special counsel’s investigation is a ‘hoax’ or a ‘witch hunt,’?” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “At this point, any step President Trump may take to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation — including removing Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein or threatening to remove special counsel Mueller directly — will have to be seen as a direct attempt to aid the Russian government in attacking American democracy.”</div><div>
</div><div>Prosecutors said the Internet Research Agency kept a list of real Americans whom its employees had contacted using false personas and asked to assist the effort. The list, which numbered more than 100 people by late August 2016, included the U.S. citizens’ contact information, a summary of each person’s political views and the activities the Russians had asked them to undertake.</div><div>
</div><div>None of those charged are in custody, according to Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office. Russia does not allow its citizens to be extradited to the United States to face trial, so it is unlikely the individuals will be turned over, but the indictment probably will prevent them from traveling outside Russia.</div><div>
</div><div>Some of the Russians posed as Americans and, without revealing their Russian identities, “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities,” the indictment said.</div><div>
</div><div>By February 2016, the suspects had decided whom they were supporting in the race, according to the indictment, which quoted an instruction to Internet Research Agency specialists to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them.)” Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was running for the Democratic nomination.</div><div>
</div><div>Prosecutors say some Russian employees of the troll farm were chastised in September 2016 when they had a “low number of posts dedicated to criticizing Hillary Clinton” and were told it was “imperative to intensify criticizing” the Democratic nominee in future pieces.</div><div>
</div><div>Stolen identities</div><div>The charges include conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Many of the charges center on the use of at least a half-dozen bank accounts to buy ads online or participate in political activism.</div><div>
</div><div>[Russian ads show sophistication of influence campaign]</div><div>
</div><div>In a related move, prosecutors announced that a Santa Paula, Calif., man had pleaded guilty Monday in Washington to identity fraud, admitting that he made tens of thousands of dollars by creating hundreds of bank accounts, often using stolen identities. Richard Pinedo, 28, sold the accounts to unidentified offshore users, apparently including suspects connected to the Russia probe.</div><div>
</div><div>Prosecutors released documents unsealed Friday that showed that Pinedo was charged Feb. 7 after entering a plea deal five days earlier in which he agreed to cooperate with investigators in exchange for an advisory sentencing guideline of 12 to 18 months in prison.</div><div>
</div><div>Pinedo attorney Jeremy Lessem said his client “had absolutely no knowledge” of who his purchasers were or what they did with the information he sold, adding that to the extent his actions may have assisted anyone in interfering with the election, that “was done completely without his knowledge or understanding.”</div><div>
</div><div>One of those indicted Friday was Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, a well-known figure that the Russian news media has identified as the financial backer of the Internet Research Agency. He is a caterer who has been nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because of his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering, two Russian businesses also charged by Mueller’s team Friday, previously have been identified as Prigozhin vehicles.</div><div>
</div><div>“The Americans are very impressionable people, and they see what they want to see,” Prigozhin told Russia’s RIA Novosti state news agency in response to the indictment. “I respect them very much.”</div><div>
</div><div>Referring to the list of indicted individuals, he added: “I am not at all disappointed that I appear in this list. If they want to see the devil — let them.”</div><div>
</div><div>The Internet Research Agency was at the center of Silicon Valley’s investigation into Russian meddling during the 2016 election. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google all found evidence that the private firm used social media to divide American voters across a range of polarizing issues, including race, religion, gun rights and immigration.</div><div>
</div><div>A Twitter spokesman said: “Russian efforts to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election, in part by abusing social media platforms, go against everything we at Twitter believe. Any activity of this kind is intolerable, and we all must do more to prevent it.”</div><div>
</div><div>The Internet Research Agency is regarded as the most prominent part of the Russian disinformation campaign, although congressional investigators pushed for evidence of other operations, including from countries other than Russia, that shared the same purpose.</div><div>
</div><div>Anton Troianovski in Berlin and Craig Timberg, Spencer S. Hsu and Karoun Demirjian in Washington contributed to this report.</div><div>
</div><div>Read more:</div><div>
</div><div>How Russian Facebook ads worked</div><div>
</div><div>The notorious Kremlin-linked ‘troll farm’ and the Russians trying to take it down</div><div>
</div><div>Twitter to tell 677,000 users they were had by the Russians. Some signs show the problem continues.</div></div>On 16 February 2018, 13 individuals were indicted by the Washington, D.C. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury" title="Grand jury" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">grand jury</a> for alleged illegal interference in the 2016 presidential elections, during which they strongly supported the candidacy of Donald Trump, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation(2017%E2%80%93present)" title="Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">according to special counsel Robert Mueller's office</a>. IRA, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Concord Management</a> and Concord Catering were also indicted. It was allegedly that IRA was controlled by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin" title="Yevgeny Prigozhin" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin</a>, a wealthy associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#cite_note-Guard-80" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">[79]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#cite_note-indictment-81" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">[80]</a>The indicted individuals are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bystrov" title="Mikhail Bystrov" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mikhail_Leonidovich_Burchik&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aleksandra_Yuryevna_Krylova&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anna_Vladislavovna_Bogacheva&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sergey_Pavlovich_Polozov&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sergey Pavlovich Polozov (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Sergey Pavlovich Polozov</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maria_Anatolyevna_Bovda&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Maria Anatolyevna Bovda (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Maria Anatolyevna Bovda</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Sergeyevich_Bovda&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Robert Sergeyevich Bovda (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Robert Sergeyevich Bovda</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dzheykhun_Nasimi_Ogly_Aslanov&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly Aslanov</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vadim_Vladimirovich_Podkopaev&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gleb_Igorevitch_Vasilchenko&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Gleb Igorevitch Vasilchenko</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Irina_Viktorovna_Kaverzina&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin" title="Yevgeny Prigozhin" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vladimir_Venkov&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Vladimir Venkov (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Vladimir Venkov</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#cite_note-indictment-81" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">[80]</a> None of the defendants is in custody.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#cite_note-82" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">[81]</a>On March 15, President Trump imposed financial sanctions under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_America%27s_Adversaries_Through_Sanctions_Act" title="Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act</a> on the 13 Russian and organizations indicted by Mueller,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#cite_note-83" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background: none;">[82]</a> preventing them from entering the United States to answer the charges should they wish to.
Yevgeny Viktorovich Prigozhin (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: Евгений Викторович Пригожин; born June 1, 1961) is a Russian businessman<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-auto-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> with ties to Russian president <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin" title="Vladimir Putin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Vladimir Putin</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a> Prigozhin was called "Putin’s chef" in an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press" title="Associated Press" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Associated Press</a> article because of Prigozhin's restaurants and catering businesses that hosted dinners which Vladimir Putin attended with foreign dignitaries.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a> Prigozhin controls "a network of companies," including three accused of interference in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_elections,2016" title="United States elections, 2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2016 United States elections</a>. Prigozhin, his companies and associates face economic sanctions and criminal charges in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States</a>.
<div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div class="toctitle" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;" lang="en">
</div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Early_life" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Early life</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Restaurant_and_catering_career" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Restaurant and catering career</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Wagner_Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Wagner Group</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#Internet_Research_Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Internet Research Agency</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#US_Treasury_Department_sanctions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5US Treasury Department sanctions</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#US_criminal_charges" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6US criminal charges</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">7References</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Early life[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yevgeny_Prigozhin&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Early life" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Prigozhin was born in Leningrad, now called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg" title="Saint Petersburg" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Saint Petersburg</a>, on June 1, 1961 to Violetta Prigozhina (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: Виолетта Пригожина).<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-TheRight-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-Fontaka160112-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> He graduated from an athletics boarding school in 1977 and was engaged in cross-country skiing.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-TheRight-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a>On November 29, 1979, Prigozhin was given a suspended sentence for stealing (in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leningrad" class="mw-redirect" title="Leningrad" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Leningrad</a>). In 1981 he was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment under articles of robbery, fraud, and involving teenagers in prostitution. Prigozhin spent nine years in prison before he was released.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Restaurant and catering career</h2>In 1990, after his release, he and his stepfather set up a network to sell hot dogs.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:0-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> Soon, according a New York Times interview with him, "the rubles were piling up faster than his mother could count them."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:1-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> He also became the manager of and 15% stakeholder in "Contrast," started by Boris Spektr, a classmate from his boarding school, which was the first grocery store chain in Saint Petersburg. In 1995, when revenues began to fall, Prigozhin persuaded a director at Contrast, Kiril Ziminov, to open a restaurant with him. The two opened the "Old Customs House" (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: Старая Таможня), which was one of the first elite restaurants in Saint Petersburg. In 1997, inspired by waterfront restaurants on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seine" title="Seine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Seine</a> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris" title="Paris" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Paris</a>, Prigozhin and Ziminov spent $400,000 remodeling a rusting boat on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyatka_River" title="Vyatka River" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Vyatka River</a> and started the floating restaurant called New Island, which became one of the most fashionable dining spots in Saint Petersburg.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:0-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:1-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> He said his patrons "wanted to see something new in their lives and were tired of just eating cutlets with vodka." In 2001, Prigozhin personally served food to Vladimir Putin and French president <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Chirac" title="Jacques Chirac" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Jacques Chirac</a> when they dined at New Island." He also hosted US President <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W.Bush" title="George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush</a> in 2002. In 2003, Putin celebrated his birthday at New Island.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-:1-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> By 2003, Prigozhin had left his business partners, established his own independent restaurants, and had become a confidante of Putin, apparently free to engage in illicit activities without fear of prosecution.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-InsideThe-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a>His company, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Catering" class="mw-redirect" title="Concord Catering" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Catering</a>, got hundreds of millions in government contracts for feeding school children and government workers.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-InsideThe-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> In 2012 he got a contract to supply meals to the Russian military worth $1.2 billion dollars over one year. Some of the profits from this contract are alleged to have been used to start and fund <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency" title="Internet Research Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency</a>.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]In 2012 he moved his family into a St. Petersburg compound with a basketball court and a helicopter pad. He has a private jet and a 115-foot yacht.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-InsideThe-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Corruption_Foundation" title="Anti-Corruption Foundation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Anti-Corruption Foundation</a> accused Prigozhin of corrupt business practices. They estimated his illegal wealth to be worth more than one billion rubles.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Wagner Group[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yevgeny_Prigozhin&action=edit&section=3&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Wagner Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group" title="Wagner Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wagner Group</a></div>Prigozhin has been linked to a mercenary group known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group" title="Wagner Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wagner Group</a> which has been involved in various actions as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_military_contractor" class="mw-redirect" title="Private military contractor" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">private military contractor</a>. On February 7, 2018 Wagner attacked US backed Kurdish forces in Syria in an attempt to take an oil field. Wagner and their allies suffered dozens of casualties when the US responded with airpower.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a>The Washington Post reported Prigozhin was in close contact with Russian and Syrian military officials before the February 7 action.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-CNN-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a> The connections between Prigozhin and Wagner have been the subject of press coverage in Russia and the United States. Wagner is lead by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Utkin" class="mw-redirect" title="Dmitry Utkin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dmitry Utkin</a>, who was once head of security for Prigozhin. A person by the name of Dmitry Utkin was also listed as Director General of Prigozhin's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management</a>. Since 2011, Prigozhin's mother Violetta Prigozhin has been the owner of Concord.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-Fontaka160112-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> Concord and Prigozhin denied any connection to Wagner,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-auto-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> however in November 2016 the company confirmed to Russian media that the same Dmitry Utkin leading Wagner Group was now in charge of Prigozhin's food businesses.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-uawire.org-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a> Wagner has also been reported to be fighting in eastern Ukraine with pro-Russia forces.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-uawire.org-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Internet Research Agency</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency" title="Internet Research Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency</a></div>Prigozhin has been connected to and is alleged to have financed and directed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a> a network of companies including a company called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency" title="Internet Research Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency</a> Ltd., (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language" title="Russian language" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Russian</a>: ООО «Агентство интернет-исследований»)<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-mr7.ru_30.05.2014-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management and Consulting</a> Company and one other related company.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-auto-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a> The three companies are accused of internet trolling and attempting to influence the 2016 US Presidential elections and other activity to influence political events outside Russia.Russian journalist Andrey Soshnikov reported that Alexey Soskovets, who had participated in Russian youth political community, was directly connected to the offices of Internet Research in Olgino. His company, North-Western Service Agency, won 17 or 18 (according to different sources) contracts for organizing celebrations, forums and sport competitions for authorities of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg" title="Saint Petersburg" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Saint Petersburg</a>. The agency was the only participant in half of those bids. In the summer of 2013 the agency won a tender for providing freight services for participants of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seliger(forum)" title="Seliger (forum)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Seliger</a> camp.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a>Despite links to Alexei Soskovets, Nadejda Orlova, deputy head of the Committee for Youth Policy in Saint Petersburg, disputed connection between her institution and the trolling offices.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]<h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">US Treasury Department sanctions</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis" title="International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">International sanctions during the Ukrainian crisis</a></div>On December 20, 2016, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Treasury_Department" class="mw-redirect" title="US Treasury Department" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">US Treasury Department</a> designated Prigozhin pursuant to E.O.13661 for sanctions for providing support to senior officials of the Russian Federation.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-Ukraine-EO13661-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-US161220-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a>In June 2017 US sanctions were imposed on one of Prigozhin's companies, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management and Consulting</a>, in connection with the war in Eastern Ukraine.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-uawire.org-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-US170620-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a>On January 28, 2018 the US Treasury Department also designated Evro Polis Ltd for sanctions. Evro Polis is a Russian company that has contracted with the Government of Syria to protect Syrian oil fields in exchange for a 25 percent share in oil and gas production from the fields. The company was designated for being owned or controlled by Yevgeniy Prigozhin. The sanctions require that any property or interests in property of the designated persons in the possession or control of U.S. persons or within the United States must be blocked. Additionally, transactions by U.S. persons involving these persons (including companies) are generally prohibited.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-US180126-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">US criminal charges[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yevgeny_Prigozhin&action=edit&section=6&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: US criminal charges" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable" style="font-style: italic; padding-left: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Counsel_investigation(2017%E2%80%93present)" title="Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Special Counsel investigation (2017–present)</a></div><table role="presentation" class="mbox-small plainlinks sistersitebox" style="clear: right; float: right; margin: 4px 0px 4px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; width: 238px; line-height: 1.25em; background-color: rgb(249, 249, 249); border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170);"><tbody><tr><td class="mbox-image" style="border: none; padding: 2px 0px 2px 0.9em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/38px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png" class="noviewer" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/57px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg/76px-Wikisource-logo.svg.png 2x" data-file-width="410" data-file-height="430" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: middle;" width="38" height="40" /></td><td class="mbox-text plainlist" style="border: none; padding: 0.25em 0.9em; width: 157.844px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikisource" title="Wikisource" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wikisource</a> has original text related to this article:<div style="margin-left: 10px;"><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency_Indictment" class="extiw" title="wikisource:Internet Research Agency Indictment" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Internet Research Agency Indictment</a></div></td></tr></tbody></table>On February 16, 2018, Prigozhin, the Internet Research Agency, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord_Management_and_Consulting" title="Concord Management and Consulting" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Concord Management</a>, another related company, and other connected Russian individuals were indicted by a U.S. grand jury. He was charged with funding and organizing operations for the purpose of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections" title="Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">interference with the U.S. political and electoral processes</a>, including the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_elections,2016" title="United States elections, 2016" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2016 presidential election</a>, and other crimes including identity theft.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Prigozhin#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a>==</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>