The Biden administration announced wide-ranging actions Wednesday meant to call out Russian influence in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, unsealing criminal charges against two employees of a Russian state-run media company and seizing internet domains used by the Kremlin to spread disinformation.
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00:00This morning, we unsealed an indictment in the Southern District of New York
00:04of Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva,
00:08two Russian-based employees of RT,
00:12a Russian state-controlled media outlet.
00:16They are charged with conspiring to commit money laundering
00:19and to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
00:22In the wake of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,
00:26RT, which was then known as Russia Today,
00:30was dropped by its American distributors.
00:33The company ceased its formal operations in the United States,
00:37and the European Union, the UK, and Canada banned RT's broadcasting.
00:43But as RT itself has boasted,
00:46the government of Russia continued to use RT to direct disinformation and propaganda.
00:52In the wake of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine,
00:55RT's editor-in-chief said the company had built
01:06We allege that as part of that effort, RT and its employees,
01:10including the defendants,
01:12implemented a nearly $10 million scheme to fund and direct
01:16a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content
01:20deemed favorable to the Russian government.
01:23To implement this scheme, the defendants directed the company
01:26to contract with U.S.-based social media influencers
01:31to share this content on their platforms.
01:34The subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company
01:38were often consistent with Russia's interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions
01:45in order to weaken U.S. opposition to core Russian interests,
01:50particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine.
01:53In a separate enforcement action,
01:55the Justice Department is seizing 32 Internet domains
01:59that the Russian government and the Russian-sponsored actors have used
02:03to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence
02:08the outcome of our country's elections.
02:11As alleged in our court filings,
02:13President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, including Sergei Kirinnikov,
02:19directed Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation
02:25and state-sponsored narratives as part of a program
02:28to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
02:32An internal planning document created by the Kremlin states
02:36that as a goal of the campaign
02:39is securing Russia's preferred outcome in the election.
02:43The online infrastructure used by the Russian public relations company,
02:48known as the Social Design Agency or SDA,
02:52and related actors included what are sometimes referred to as cyber-squatted domains.
02:58These websites were designed to appear to American readers
03:02as if they were major U.S. news sites like the Washington Post or Fox News.
03:08But in fact, they were fake sites.
03:11They were filled with Russian government propaganda
03:14that had been created by the Kremlin to reduce international support for Ukraine,
03:18bolster pro-Russian policies and interests,
03:22and influence voters in the United States and in other countries.
03:26Unfortunately, we know that Russia is not the only foreign power
03:30seeking to interfere in our elections.
03:33As the U.S. intelligence community noted two weeks ago,
03:36we have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle.
03:43That includes recently reported activities by Iran
03:46to compromise former President Trump's campaign
03:49and to avoid an election outcome that it regards as against its interests.
03:54Those recently reported Iranian activities also include efforts to obtain access
03:59to individuals who themselves have access
04:02to the presidential campaigns of both political parties.
04:06The Justice Department's message is clear.
04:09We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes
04:13to exploit our democratic system of government.
04:18We will be relentlessly aggressive in countering and disrupting attempts
04:24by Russia and Iran, as well as China or any other foreign malign actor,
04:30to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.