The US Justice Department on Tuesday announced new charges against four Americans and three Russians in Florida for working on Moscow’s behalf in a “multi-year campaign of foreign malign influence in the US”.
The additional indictment by a federal jury in Tampa included charges against Alexander Viktorovich Ionov of Moscow and named Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officers Alexei Borisovich Sukotolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov, the ministry said.
In July, Ionov was charged with organizing an election interference campaign using political groups in Florida, Georgia and California, a charge he called “absurd.”
Representatives of the Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Four Florida residents involved in various political groups, including the African Socialist People’s Party, are also charged with recruiting Ionov to “participate in an influence campaign and act as agents of Russia in the United States,” the ministry said.
Additionally, in a separate Washington case, Natalia Berlinova was charged with “conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States.”
Berlinova allegedly tried to get American academics and researchers to travel to Russia for a Moscow-funded project “dedicated to the promotion of Russian national interests,” according to the Justice Department.
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