On Wednesday, the United States government laid charges of money laundering against a duo working for the Russian state-owned broadcasting company, RT. According to officials, they were allegedly involved in a plan to contract a United States enterprise for content creation intended to sway the 2024 presidential race.
The Justice department voiced that these employees utilised illegitimate businesses and counterfeit identities to funnel $10 million towards an anonymous firm in Tennessee. The purpose was for the creation and dissemination of online video content designed to enhance the existing political rifts in the US.
In addition to these allegations, the US treasury and state departments made known restrictions aimed at RT, encompassing the network’s senior editor, Margarita Simonovna Simonyan.
US representatives were confident in Russia’s object to enhance US political polarity and reduce domestic approval for US aid towards Ukraine amidst its conflict with Russia. “We won’t back down in our unyielding mission to challenge and obstruct attempts by Russia, Iran, and China, as well as any overseas adversaries, to thwart our elections and destabilise our democracy,” said US attorney general Merrick Garland.
Alongside this, the FBI has appealed to the court to seize 32 web domains under suspicion of being part of Russia’s attempt to wield influence from overseas.
RT, in response, mocked the charges. The broadcaster halted all operations in the US following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, a Russian legislator dismissed the reports as “nonsense” and contended it is inconsequential to Moscow whether the winner of the Nov. 5 election is Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Kamal Harris.
Maria Butina, a State Duma deputy, told Reuters, “the only benefactor of the U.S. elections is the U.S. private military industrial complex.”
Simultaneously, the Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately comment on the matter.
Two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, were held accountable for the offense under the US money laundering and foreign agent regulations in the formal indictment. Both individuals currently reside in Russia and are yet to be apprehended.
The Ministry of Justice in the UK reported a Tennessee-based firm has created nearly two-thousand video contents, touching on subjects like immigration and inflation. These have garnered approximately 16 million views on YouTube since last November.
In an example provided by the ministry, it was mentioned that Ms Afanasyeva instructed the firm to make a video attributing a terrorist attack in a Moscow concert hall to Ukraine and the United States. The explicit details pertaining to the Tennessee firm or its higher-ups were not disclosed in the proclamation. Nonetheless, it was implied that the business failed to reveal it was receiving funding from RT and that the leaders of the firm did not declare to the ministry that they served as representatives of a foreign government.
The Ministry had earlier cautioned about the continuous threat Russia poses in the electoral process, seemingly backing the Republican Donald Trump against the Democrat Kamala Harris. Intelligence evaluations by the United States posed that Moscow had endeavoured to favour Trump during his win against Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, in 2016, and his loss to another Democrat, Joe Biden, in 2020. Moscow has refuted these claims.
Trump has reinforced his claims on social media networks that the justice department aims to cause his defeat in the elections. Officials of the ministry alleged that Russian leader, Vladimir Putin along with his supporters have begun employing advanced tactics to target specific electoral groups, especially those in swing states, by leveraging bot farms and artificial intelligence.
In a related event, last month, the homes of two American individuals associated with Russian state media were searched by the FBI. These individuals included ex United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter and Dimitri Simes, who provided advice to Trump’s campaign in 2016.
In addition, the US government has accused Iran of attempting to meddle in the imminent election through cyber tactics aimed at both the Trump and Harris factions. The Trump faction indicated that Iran was responsible for the leak of campaign documents to American media channels. – Thomson Reuters 2024.