DOJ INDICTS RUSSIAN NATIONAL: IS THIS THE BEGINNING OR THE END?

WEDNESDAY 27 JULY 2022

UKRAINE, THE LATEST, Podcast by the Telegraph (7/27/22)

• Interviews with people on the ground in Ukraine.
• Kherson, the beginning of a counterattack is possible.  One of the most important bridges has been closed for civilians.  The Ukrainians don’t want to destroy the bridge since they may have to use it.
• A replacement has been named for the new Prosecutor General after the previous Prosecutor General was removed for not adequately removing Russian collaborators.
• Discussion with Telegraph Reporter Dom Nichols in Kyiv.
• People seem to have accepted the fact that the war is going to last over a year, according to polls.
• The number of people who have no employment has increased.
• After Bucha there has been a dramatic swing in the number of people who reject diplomacy to end the war.  People fee that Russia wants to eliminate them as a country and they are not interested in negotiating.

TWITTER:

• As Russia shells towns in Ukraine, there are graves in the yards.

THE POWER VERTICAL podcast, (7/20/22)

• “Ukraine Fatigue” is a serious problem.
• Approximately 2 million Ukrainians are in the U.S.
• Interview about maintaining support for Ukraine.

FRIDAY 29 JULY 2022

The DOJ has indicted a Russian national for operating three political groups in the US.  I am certain that there are hundreds of Republican groups that could be similarly indicted or named as “unindicted co-conspirators.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/29/russia-influence-ionov-florida-uhuru/

• Aleksandr Ionov was charged with a “years-long malign influence campaign targeting American politics.”
• He used American political groups in Florida, Georgia and California to push a pro-Russian agenda and sow discourd.
• He funded and directed these groups.
• The groups are not named. (Note: The group in Florida appears to be a black separatist movement.)
• These groups were, according to the head of the Justice Department’s national security division, turned into “instruments of the Russian government.”
• Individuals identified as only as unindicted co-conspirators included two Americans who ran for local office. 
• Ionov wrote to handlers in Russia about managing the campaigns.  He referred to one indieicual as a person “whom we supervise.”
• He paid for one group to conduct a four-city tour after they submitted a petition to the United Nations at his behest.
• The group is thought to be “Uhuru House” which is run by the African People’s Socialist Party. 
• According to one FBI agent this was an attempt to “destabilize and undermine trust in American democracy.”
• Search warrants in the St. Petersburg area are being executed.
• Ionov provided the groups with money and advised them.
• After the invasion of Ukraine, Ionov told his FSB handlers that he had enlisted the Florida group to support Russia in the “information war unleashed.”
• The group directed by Ionov in California advocated for secession.
• He is accused of trying to persuade the leader of the group to physically enter the governor’s office in a protest.
• Ionov also went so far as to provid designs for signs used in a protest by the Atlanta group.

Justice Department Release

https://www.justice.gov/sco/pr/russian-national-indicted-making-false-statements-fbi#:~:text=Russian%20National%20Indicted%20for%20Making%20False%20Statements%20to,to%20the%20FBI%20During%20the%202016%20Presidential%20Campaign

Indictment

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22123468-ionov-indictment