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Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin and head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which is fighting in Ukraine, boasted on Monday that he interfered in the US midterm congressional elections and plans to continue doing so .
Prigozhin gained infamy as an operator of Internet “troll farms” and was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for his role in meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, using a company he owned , then called the Internet Research Agency, to spread disinformation. and sow discord, especially on social media platforms.
Asked by Russian media about further interference in the midterm elections, Prigozhin replied: “Gentlemen, we interfered. We are interfering and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do it.”
His comments were published by his press service on the Russian social media platform VKontakte.
“During our one-off operations, we will remove both kidneys and the liver at the same time,” Prigozhin said.
Prighozin’s provocative comments, the day before election day in the United States, were impossible to verify. US government cyber agencies have said they largely neutralized Russian troll farms in subsequent election cycles.
Major social media platforms have also become much more vigilant in policing suspicious content, although Elon Musk’s recent large-scale staff cuts at Twitter have raised questions about whether the company could maintain adequate monitoring of the content before Tuesday’s vote.
Whether Prigozhin’s remarks were true, or merely misinformation intended to alarm the United States, they nonetheless reflected how Putin and his supporters see Russia as fighting a multi-front war against the supposedly hegemonic dominated West by the USA Putin and his allies have said Russia is fighting the United States and other NATO nations in Ukraine, and have blamed the West for prolonging the war Putin started.
On November 7, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said claims that Russian President Putin is interfering in the US election are “not surprising”. (Video: The Washington Post)
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday that Prigozhin likely had the approval of Russian leaders before releasing the claims. “His bold confession, if anything, appears to be just one manifestation of the impunity enjoyed by criminals and cronies under President Putin and the Kremlin,” Price said.
Russia has also used disinformation, its muscle in energy markets and its control over Ukraine’s food exports in an effort to break Western unity over support for Ukraine. A key goal of the Kremlin is to weaken Western democracies by promoting far-right candidates, targeting centrists and spreading divisive rhetoric.
Influencing the overall outcome of a midterm congressional election, given hundreds of candidates on the ballot in all 50 states, is more complicated than a head-to-head presidential race. But individual congressional races, in small districts or individual states, can be prone to outside interference.
The Treasury Department filed sanctions against Prigozhin in March 2018 for his role in interfering with the 2016 election, and again in 2019 for meddling in the 2018 congressional elections. In each case, the department cited his role in funding the troll farm of the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have also introduced sanctions against Prigozhin.
The oligarch, who made his fortune on contracts catering to the Russian government, including kindergartens, schools and the military, is known as “Putin’s chef”.
He also runs the FAN news agency, which pushes his agenda, including attacks on his political enemies and praise for his own projects, such as his push into Africa in recent years, providing security services and advice on political manipulation to the continent’s autocrats in return. to access resources.
After years of denying any links to Wagner’s mercenary group, Prigozhin in recent months has openly admitted his association with the private militia, even personally recruiting fighters from Russian prisons, despite the fact that the mercenary groups are illegal under Russian law.
Wagner’s mercenaries have for months tried unsuccessfully to drive Ukrainian forces out of Bakhmut, Ukraine, a battle that has taken a heavy toll on each side and left the city in ruins, although Western military analysts have said there is no strategic military logic to drive. to take the city
Bloomberg News reported that social media analytics firm Graphika had found that a Russian political interference network associated with the Internet Research Agency had engaged in new political interference, promoting conspiracy theories of the right, with the aim of involving the midterm election races against the Democratic candidates.
The latest U.S. sanctions on Prigozhin came in July, related to Prigozhin’s “Project Lakhta,” a disinformation campaign he funded targeting audiences in the United States, Europe and Ukraine. According to the Treasury Department, Project Lakhta spends tens of millions of dollars to fund troll farms “and other mechanisms of malign influence.”
“Since at least 2014, Project Lakhta has used, among other things, fictitious online personas impersonating US persons in an effort to interfere in US elections,” according to the Treasury Department.
Graphika reported that the Russian network made “direct attempts to undermine support for Democratic candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York and Ohio,” beginning in August and September. A primary vehicle was the release of political cartoons, “almost certainly meant to go viral.”
“The network consists of a number of fake personas on alt-tech platforms popular with far-right online audiences in the US, such as Gab, Parler, Gettr and the discussion forum patriots.win. These people routinely spread inflammatory narratives on sensitive cultural and political issues in the US, such as vaccines, gun control, racial injustice and allegations of child sexual abuse. Actors are consistently critical of the Biden-Harris administration,” the Graphika report said.
Network figures also shared right-wing media articles and screenshots of social media posts accompanied by inflammatory political commentary, according to the report.
According to the report, online trolls from the Internet Research Agency targeted Democratic candidates including Sen. Raphael G. Warnock and Gov. hopeful Stacey Abrams in Georgia, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate candidate John Fetterman in Pennsylvania and Senate candidate Tim Ryan in Ohio. — with racist or inflammatory material.
In a new development, the accounts also played into Russia’s war against Ukraine, promoting the Kremlin’s false narrative that Ukraine is a Nazi state and suggesting that the Biden administration’s support for Ukraine had harmed living standards in the North. americans
But Graphika reported that the latest campaign had achieved minimal online traction.
Prigozhin’s political currency has increased in the Kremlin because of his role in the war, not only sending Wagner into battle but also creating grassroots defense groups in Russian territory near the Ukrainian border.
At the same time, Prigozhin has become one of the strongest critics of the Russian military for its failures and retreats in Ukraine. He recently angrily told Putin about the issue, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The exchange was included in the daily intelligence briefing provided to President Biden. Prigozhin denied having spoken to Putin.