US files new charges over alleged influence campaign in Moscow

The supplemental indictment from a federal jury in Tampa adds charges against Moscow’s Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov and also names Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officials Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov, the ministry said.

Ionov was charged in July with orchestrating an election intervention campaign using political groups in Florida, Georgia and California, a charge he called “nonsense”.

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, have also been charged, the department said, adding that Ionov allegedly recruited them “to engage in influence campaigning and act as agents of Russia to the United States”.

Moreover, in another case in Washington, Natalia Burlinova is accused of “conspiracy with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States”.

Burlinova reportedly tried to recruit American scholars and researchers to visit Russia under a Moscow-funded program “dedicated to promoting Russian national interests”, according to the Justice Department.