Translated material
"Specialists" from Savushkina Street
The US authorities charged with 2016 presidential elections to three Russian companies and 13 personalities.the New Times carefully read the 37-page text
Photo: muz1.tv
Special prosecutor Robert Muller , appointed in May 2017 to investigate Russia's intervention in the American elections in 2016 and a conspiracy with the Kremlin of the Donald Trump election headquarters, finally erupted with an impressive pack of accusatory documents . In their center is the St. Petersburg “Troll Factory” , or the “Internet Research Agency”, which has already been devoted to numerous articles in the Western and Russian press.
However, Moscow does not see “some significant evidence” that “someone intervened in the internal affairs of the United States,” the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov on Monday, February 19, commented on the indictment of the Russian President: “We are talking about the citizens of Russia, but we have heard from Washington the accusations of the involvement of the Russian state. There are no indications that the Russian state could have involvement in this, and cannot be, ”Peskov said.
Project "Translator"
The large jury (a jury of the jury) convened by Müller in Washington approved the charges against three Russian organizations and 13 individuals who are now recommended to carefully choose the routes of their foreign wanderings. In addition to his close proximity to Putin and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Yevgeny Prigozhin , on the list of individuals, there are another twelve people who worked for him: Mikhail Bystrov, Mikhail Burchik, Alexander Krylova, Anna Bogacheva, Sergey Polozov, Maria Bovda (aka Belyaeva), Robert Bovda, Jaykhun Aslanov, Vadim Podkopaev, Irina Vasilchenko, Irina, Irina, Irina. Cavers and Vladimir Venkov.
Increase the accusations
Source: Nytimes.com
The list of accused legal entities heads the “agency”, which the indictment characterizes as “a Russian organization engaged in interference in elections and political processes”. Since 2014, it has been in house number 55 on the street. Savushkina in St. Petersburg.
In the “agency” (in accusatory documents it also appears under the word “organization”), hundreds of people worked who performed a variety of functions - from creating fictitious personalities to providing technical and administrative support to operations that were called the “information war against the United States”.
The St. Petersburg trolls began preparations for the American choice, as follows from the text of the prosecution, back in April 2014 - that is, soon, after the victory of the Maidan in Ukraine and Putin’s decision to annexation of Crimea. Then the department was created in the “Agency”, which was also held under the code name “Translator”. The subject of interest is the population of the United States. The department conducted operations in social networks, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, directly in the United States “to collect intelligence information” - this is how the charges were indicated, for example, Alexander Yuryevna Krylova and Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva. By July 2016, about 80 agency employees were already involved in the project.
According to the indictment, in 2014 the accused “deliberately entered into a criminal conspiracy with each other and with other persons known and unknown to the Big Jury for deceiving the United States ... in order to intervene in political and election processes, including the 2016 presidential elections.”
The activities of the Agency, according to prosecutors, were financed by its owner Evgeny Prigozhin and companies that controlled by him, including Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering, which paid salaries and premium to the rest of the accused.
Both Concords are also included in the list of accused.
"Lakhta Project"
According to American prosecutors, the financing of the Agency was only part of a more extensive operation under the code name Lakhta Project. Prigozhinsky “Concords” were responsible for the operation, it included information processing of both the Russian audience and the population of other countries, including the United States.
Photo: Doug Mills / The New York
The accused, the prosecutor’s documents say, “posing as Americans and creating fictitious American characters, managed pages and groups on social networks designed to attract an American audience.” According to Müller’s employees, the characters suspected of them used stolen personal data (to pay for accounts on social networks) of real Americans. That is, they conducted their activities as intelligence agents do, often using the biographies of deceased people. According to The New York Times, a certain Richard Pinedo , living in California, in the town of Santa Paula, pleaded guilty of the theft and sale of bank accounts. Some Pinedo clients who bought stolen accounts on the Internet market were foreigners who are the subject of investigation of special prosecutors. Pinedo, according to the Müller team, went on a deal with the investigation and provides the necessary data.
According to Müller’s employees, the characters suspected of them used stolen personal data (to pay for accounts on social networks) of real Americans. That is, they conducted activities as intelligence agents do, often using the biographies of deceased people
The purpose of this project, like the translator project, was to sow chaos and discord in American politics, prosecutors write. Preshing themselves as Americans, project employees contacted political and social activists in the United States. For example, in June 2016, they contacted social networks with an American who was in the mass movement in Texas, and turned out to him that they should concentrate their efforts on the “purple” (induced) states, such as Colorado, Virginia or Florida.
After that, the accused began to constantly talk about the “purple states”, instructing other trolls.
However, this place of the indictment caused ridicule in the US press, which noted that a political analysis of this level could be gleaned from any picket vest.
Two shift work
By the beginning of 2016 , the agency’s operations began to include the support of Trump's candidacy and the discredit of Hillary Clinton. According to prosecutors, the accused purchased political announcements on social networks on behalf of Americans and American organizations, since foreigners do not have the right to pay pre -election expenses in the United States. They also organized political rallies in America, while hiding their Russian origin and not registering as foreign agents.
The Agency’s employees, known as “experts”, were instructed to open accounts in social networks under the guise of Americans. They worked in daytime and night shifts and were supposed to orient their posts depending on the time zones. Among the employees, lists of American holidays spread so that their posts sound accordingly.
The costs of the Lakhta Project in September 2016 “amounted to approximately 73 million rubles, or $ 1.25 million. As noted in this regard in the American media, in order to influence the congressman’s elections in the New Jersey provincial district, it will take several times a large amount
The accused created thematic pages in social networks, especially on Facebook and Instagram, dedicated to the most discussed topics. Here are some of them: the problems of illegal immigration in the United States (for example, a group called Secure Borders , “safe borders”, or “border on the castle”), the movement of African -Americans Black Life Matters (literal translation: “Life of black (also) is important), which appeared after the murder of several African Americans (groups of type Blacktivist), religion (groups of the United Muslims of America or Army of Jesus) or American political geography (“United South” and “Heart of Texas”).
By 2016, the audience of some of them reached hundreds of thousands of followers. However, all this, as the Deputy Minister of Justice of the United States, Rod Rosenstein, did not affect the results of the presidential election.
The documents reported that by September 2016 the monthly costs for the Lakhta Project “amounted to approximately 73 million rubles, or $ 1.25 million. As noted in this regard in the American media, in order to influence the congressman’s elections in the New Jersey provincial district, it will take several times a large amount.
In December 2017, NSA, the US National Security Agency (NSA), reported that the Agency on the street. Savushkina “clearly sought to highlight topics on tectonic faults of American political life, such as the second amendment (to the US Constitution - the right to weapons), same -sex marriages and economics, as well as issues that are often characterized by painful or controversial, such as racism or religion; The goal is to drive a wedge between different layers of the American population. ”
Employees of the “Internet research agency” divided their content in social networks into four categories: “Govnostrana” (which the Anb bashfully translated as CRAP Country ), or materials about the United States, “High-F. Explosion”, “Operation of specific events” and spam.
Photo: Osipovich.com
Somewhere in 2015, the accused and their accomplices began to purchase ads on social networks, advertising the groups controlled by them. The corresponding expenses were included in the estimates that the organization represented in the Concord Evgeny Prigozhin.
The agency’s employees also created many accounts on Twitter under the guise of Americans, among which the prosecutors identify Tennessee GOP (from the Grand Old Party), that is, the “Republican Tennessi Party”, with the hashtag @ten_gop - it had more than 100 thousand followers.
In 2016, the accused and their accomplices were illegally acquired by numbers in the Social Security Number system - approximately like Russian SNILS, knowing which can access personal information and bank accounts of the owner of the number) and the date of birth of real Americans without the knowledge and permission of their owners. Using these, they opened accounts in the PayPal payment system, received linden identification certificates, including driver’s license, and enjoyed accounts in American social networks under the name of these owners of these certificates.
Order: "More Criticism Hillary!"
According to prosecutors, around 2014, the accused began to discuss the intervention in the American elections in 2016 and began to study the relevant materials of social networks and other sources. In 2016, they began to realize their plan, using fake personalities on the network. Their operations consisted mainly of the distribution of defamatory information about Hillary Clinton and other candidates, such as Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, known for their skeptical attitude to Russia, and the support of socialist Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
According to the internal document of the “Internet Research Agency” dated February 10, 2016, which the employees managed to get, the agency’s specialists were ordered “to use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest” (except Sanders and Trump-“We support them”).
According to the internal document of the “Internet Research Agency” dated February 10, 2016, which employees managed to get it, the agency’s specialists were ordered “to use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest” (except Sanders and Trump-“We support them”)
On September 14, 2016, a specialist responsible for the Facebook group entitled “Border on the Castle” received a remark for posting too few criticisms of Hillary Clinton, and received an order to intensify the criticism of the US presidential candidate from the Democratic Party.
In connection with the 2016 elections, the accused and their colleagues laid out the Content with the hashtags #Trump2016, #trumptrain, #IWontProtECTHILARY and #HILLARY4PRISON.
They created on Twitter accounts of the March for Trump and Facebook - Clinton Fraudation and Trumpsters United.
In addition, the defendants were associated on behalf of false Americans with voluntary assistants to the Trump election campaign and supporting organizations and supplied them with their agitation materials. According to Deputy Minister of Rosenstein, the investigation has no data that one of the Americans has a concept of who they deal with.
In the summer of 2016, the accused began to disseminate false information on social networks that the Democratic Party is engaged in falsification of elections, for example, during the preliminary elections in the states of Iowa (IWA) and in North Carolina, and on November 2 of the same year, they distributed for tens of thousands of invalids in Florida for Hillary Clinton. Bulletins.
Political announcements placed in social networks were paid through accounts opened in PayPal or in Russian banks for the names of fictitious Americans. Here are a number of examples from indictment:
“You know, very many blacks support us, saying #Hillaryricklinem President” (April 6, 2016),
"Join our #Hillaryriclikliklikliturem 2016" (April 19, 2016),
"Hillaryricliklikliklikliklakhny" (May 24, 2016),
“Of all the candidates, Donald Trump is the only one who can protect the police from terrorists” (October 14, 2016).
Since June 2016, the accused began to organize and coordinate political rallies in the United States. At the same time, they sent themselves as homegrown American activists, who, for various reasons, were not able to meet with the participants in the shares or to participate in them personally. They created massiveness, placing announcements of promotions in social networks or asking for help from administrators of large groups.
In June 2016, the Russian trolls used the Facebook group “United Muslims of America” in order to advertise a rally under the motto “Support Hillary! Save American Muslims! ”, Which was held in Washington on July 9.
At the same time, the pre-election shares in Washington and in New York, where the disguised Russians organized rallies for both for and (subsequently) against Trump, did not find understanding with American commentators, since in both of these cities the victory of the Republican in the presidential election is already unthinkable.
On September 13, 2017, the accused Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina wrote to one of the relatives in Imile: “We had a slight crisis at work: the FBI showed off our activities (this is not a joke). So I took up the notice of traces with my colleagues "
Nothing traces
The American prosecutor’s office accuses Russian trolls of concealing evidence and claims that after reports about their US operations appeared in the media, they began to delete postal accounts related to these operations.
In September 2017, the largest social networks, starting with Facebook, announced that they had discovered suspicious accounts of Russian users who placed political advertising aimed at the American audience in the sites. It is also known that Facebook, like Twitter, collaborates with the team of special prosecutor Müller.
On September 13, 2017, the accused Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina wrote to one of the relatives by e-mail, which, obviously, was already under the control of American law enforcement agencies: “We had a slight crisis at work: the FBI dispersed our activity (this is not a joke). So I took up the notice of traces with my colleagues. ”
“I created all these pictures and posts,” she wrote further, “and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”
This is only the beginning
The investigation of the special prosecutor Müller, obviously, confirms the fact of Russian presidential campaign in the United States in 2016. However, they do not give information about the conspiracy between the Kremlin and directly to the headquarters of Donald Trump. Yes, the Russians wanted Trump to win, and Hillary Clinton to lose, yes, they began to prepare back in the spring of 2014 and, obviously, began to get into the campaign at the stage of primaries, preliminary elections, supporting one candidate from the Democratic Party (Bernie Sanders) against another (Clinton). Yes, here they were grabbed by the hand. But their efforts were unlikely to affect the result of the election, and the people of the 45th US president were not Judas-such a conclusion can be made from the publications of the American media and from the triumphant tweetes of Donald Trump himself. February 17, at 7:33 in the morning, the president tweeted out: “I never said that Russia did not interfere in the election, I said:“ It could be Russia, or China, or some other country or group, or it could be a two hundred-kilogram genius sitting on the bed and playing with a computer. The “Russian fake” was that Trump's headquarters was in conspiracy with Russia - what never was! ”
Bloomberg agency: with reference to its own sources, it reported that published charges are only a grain of large -scale investigation, which the special prosecutor Müller and his team will continue at least several months
After half an hour, another tweet followed: “If the goal of Russia was to sow in the United States, discord, confusion and chaos, then in the light of all hearings in committees, investigations and inter -party hatred they succeeded beyond all expectations. In Moscow, the tummies were torn from laughter. Be smarter, America! "
На это критики Трампа, такие как главный редактор журнала The New Yorker Дэвид Ремник, замечают, что, во-первых, сам президент и так никогда не признавал факт вмешательства Москвы в американские выборы, а, во-вторых, расследование Мюллера далеко не закончено. Дескать, еще не вечер.
В том же духе высказалось и агентство Bloomberg: со ссылкой на собственные источники оно сообщило, что опубликованные обвинения — лишь крупица масштабного расследования, которое спецпрокурор Мюллер и его команда будут продолжать еще по меньшей мере несколько месяцев.