The US government has imposed sanctions against the Russian state broadcaster RT, criminal charges and the seizure of internet domains after accusing Moscow of trying to interfere in its November presidential election by distributing propaganda and disinformation on its state media and hiring American citizens to unwittingly repeat the Russian point of view. In addition, the Justice Department has charged two RT employees with money laundering in the hiring of a content creation company that they planned to use to distribute videos on social media to interfere in the election process.
Speaking at a meeting of his department on threats to the fair conduct of the election, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the measures were aimed at stemming Russian use of its state media to get American citizens to unwittingly spread propaganda and disinformation. His department said RT’s director Margarita Simonovna Simonyan and others associated with the network hired influencers social media to spread pro-Moscow messages and sway American public opinion in Russia’s favour.
In addition, the US federal police, the FBI, has requested judicial authorization to seize 32 internet domains that Washington accuses of “malign foreign influence” and of trying to undermine public support for US efforts to help Ukraine in its war against Russian invasion.
“We will be relentless in our fight to counter and block attempts by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other malign foreign actor, to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy,” Garland said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on the punishments: “We now know that RT is no longer just a news outlet. RT has hired a private company to pay millions of dollars to Americans who are unwittingly distributing the Kremlin’s message to influence American elections and undermine democracy. RT’s top leadership has direct and voluntary knowledge of this work.”
The State Department has imposed travel restrictions on a number of individuals – it has not identified them for legal reasons – and sanctions against Rossiya Segodnya, the television network’s parent company, and other subsidiaries, as well as the media outlets RIA Novosti, RT, TV-Novosti, Sputnik and Ruptly. “We took action against these individuals solely for their covert interference activities, and not for the content of their reporting or disinformation activities,” the State Department said.
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“Today’s announcement underscores the lengths that some foreign governments will go to undermine American democratic institutions. But these foreign governments should also know that we will not tolerate malign foreign actors intentionally interfering to undermine the free and fair conduct of elections,” Blinken said.
The Justice Department is charging two RT employees with covert payments to a Tennessee content creation company to publish nearly 2,000 videos spreading Russian propaganda. The defendants, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasieva, used false names and shell companies in their dealings with the company, which did not suspect it was being used by Moscow to spread disinformation and amplify political divisions in the country.
This is not the first time that the Justice Department has warned of Russian attempts to interfere in the electoral process, one of the major concerns of this institution ahead of the November 5 elections. Garland and his team insist that Russia has not changed its preferences with respect to previous elections, in which analyses by the US intelligence services found that Moscow tried to support the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, in 2016 in his victory against the Democrat Hillary Clinton, and in 2020 against Joe Biden. In both cases, Russia has rejected the accusations.
Washington insists that Russia remains the main threat to the electoral progress, but also accuses Iran of such activities. The FBI is currently investigating a cyber attack from the latter country against the Trump campaign and an attempt against the Democratic campaign.
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