US authorities accuse Russia of election manipulation
US authorities took coordinated action against individuals linked to the Russian government and accused them of influencing elections.
An indictment released Wednesday alleges that a Tennessee-based content creation company was the tool of a team of Russian propagandists to infiltrate U.S. audiences with Kremlin-backed messages.
Two Russian nationals who worked for Russia Today, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, have been indicted on charges that they funneled nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creation company to post English-language videos on social media sites including TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube. The company’s more than 2,000 videos posted over the past 10 months have been viewed more than 16 million times on YouTube alone, the indictment says.
The indictment, unsealed in federal court for the Southern District of New York, does not identify the Tennessee-based company by name, but descriptions in the indictment match those of Tennessee-based Tenet Media.
The indictment states that the company described itself on its website as “a network of heterodox commentators focused on Western political and cultural issues.” Tennessee-based Tenet Media has the same message on its homepage. The indictment states that the Tennessee-based company was incorporated around January 19, 2022, which matches records from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office. The indictment states that the company filed an application to do business with the Tennessee Secretary of State on May 22, 2023.
Tennessee reporters submitted a message seeking comment using the submission form on Tenet Media’s website and emailed requests for comment to commenters listed on Tenet Media’s website.
According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, the two suspects are Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena. They are accused of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva are both at large, the press release states.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit the free exchange of ideas in our country to secretly advance its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter is ongoing,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in the press release.
Russia Today responded to the allegations with derision: “Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and RT’s interference in the US elections,” the media company told Reuters.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia Today was forced to cease its official operations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union, according to the federal government’s indictment.
“In response, Russia Today created, in the words of its editor-in-chief, an ‘entire empire of secret projects’ aimed at influencing public opinion among ‘Western audiences,'” the indictment states. One of these projects was the Tennessee-based online content creation company. The company was founded in November 2023.
Many of the videos contained commentary on events and issues such as immigration, inflation, and United States domestic and foreign policy, the indictment says.
Afanasyeva allegedly directed other employees of the Tennessee company to post content that was consistent with the goals of the Russian government. According to the press release, after the terrorist attack on a Moscow music venue on March 22 that killed more than 130 people, Afanasyeva called on one of the Tennessee company’s founders to pin the blame for the attack on Ukraine and the United States.
Between approximately October 2023 and August 2024, Russia Today sent wire transfers totaling approximately $9.7 million to the Tennessee company, representing approximately 90% of the company’s total bank deposits. The wire transfers came from shell companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Mauritius and traced the payments to the purchase of electronics, according to the press release.
The indictment alleges that the Tennessee-based company’s two founders concealed the company’s true source of funding when entering into contracts with two commentators by falsely stating that the funding came from a private investor named “Eduard Grigoriann,” a fictitious person.
The FBI is investigating the case.
“Covert attempts to sow discord and trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda are attacks on our democracy,” FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said in the press release. “Today’s actions demonstrate that as long as foreign adversaries like Russia continue to conduct hostile influence campaigns, they will continue to clash with the FBI. We will continue to do everything we can to expose the hidden hand of foreign adversaries like Russia and disrupt their efforts to interfere in our free and open society.”
The Tennessee-based company neither informed its viewers that it was funded by Russia Today nor registered with the Attorney General as a representative of a foreign client, as required by law, the indictment says.
If convicted, the two defendants face up to 20 years in prison each for conspiracy to commit money laundering and up to five years for conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Evan Mealins is a justice reporter for The Tennessean. Reach him at [email protected] or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter. @EvanMeAlens.
