Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian mercenary company Wagner, admitted today that he founded and funded the Internet Research Agency, a company that Washington called a “troll factory” that interfered in the 2016 US election.

Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as Wagner threw countless mercenaries onto the battlefield.

Putin’s so-called “chef” has admitted to meddling in US elections in the past, but in today’s statements he specifically described his relationship with the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency (AIA).

“I have never been only an IRA sponsor. I came up with it, I created it, I managed it for a long time,” Prigogine wrote in a social media post shared by his own catering company, Concorde.

He claimed that the company was “created to protect the Russian information space from the rude and aggressive anti-Russian propaganda of the West.”

Special Counsel Miller’s investigation

Prigozhin was first sanctioned by the United States for ties to the Internet Research Agency in 2018 and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election said the IRA sought to sow discord in the United States through “information warfare.” “He sought to sway the 2016 election in favor of Trump,” Miller said in the report. “The campaign has evolved from a wide-ranging program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the US electoral system to a targeted operation that has supported candidate Trump and humiliated candidate Clinton since early 2016,” the report says. “Internet Research Agency staff also traveled to the United States on intelligence gathering missions.”

Prigozhin, who spent the last decade of the Soviet Union in prison for robbery and fraud, was a longtime associate of Putin. His government-contracted catering company earned him the nickname “Putin’s chef” as he sent Wagner mercenaries to fight alongside Russian soldiers in Syria and conflicts across Africa to advance Russia’s geopolitical interests.

After years of denials, last year he confessed to his ties to the hired company Wagner and said it interfered in US elections. Analysts say the Kremlin, which quickly built up its public profile both in Russia and abroad following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, decided to rein him in, fearful of his reputation as an “outspoken and tough” businessman, and the impact he had after his harsh criticism. to the Department of Defense.

Source: RES-IPE