Russians Charged With Interfering in U.S. Election

The special prosecutor of the Russiagate, Robert Mueller, has indicted 13 citizens and three Russian entities for interference in the 2016 US elections.

Among the companies is the famous Russian trolley farm, Internet Research Agency, located outside of St. Petersburg and owned by businessman Evgeny Prgozhin, nicknamed Putin's Chef, where false profiles and news are generated with the "strategic objective of planting discord in the political system of the United States. " Something that was happening since 2014.

In the document with the presentation of the charges it is indicated that between the intentions of this operative it appeared "the support to Donald Trump and the denigration of [his rival] Hillary Clinton". They also tried to favor Bernie Sanders against his Democratic rival.

For his part, the US Deputy Attorney General and Justice Department number two, Rod Rosentein, said that "there is no allegation in the charges presented to ensure that these actions alter the outcome of the 2016 elections", in the who was elected Trump. The president has defended himself through Twitter, stating that his campaign "did nothing illegal".

The deputy prosecutor stressed that "two of the accused traveled to the United States in 2014 to gather information" and collaborated in a plot to impersonate US citizens on the Internet and influence the opinion of voters.

All are accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit digital fraud and aggravated identity theft. The 13 Russian individuals, Mueller maintains, "worked within the organization the aforementioned troll farm to interfere in the democracy of] the United States." As detailed below in the indictment, the organization received funds from Prgozhin.

The text states that "the defendants posed as US citizens to act creating false profiles and controlling pages of social media to intoxicate the American public." An authentic "war of information" with the mission of generating "distrust towards the political system".

The Russian government has described as "absurd" the accusations of interference in the elections in the United States, according to the agency France Presse. "Thirteen people intervened in the US elections? Thirteen, against the multimillion-dollar budgets of the special forces?" The spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, wrote on Facebook. He continued: "Against the services of espionage and counterintelligence, against the most advanced technologies? Absurd? Yes. But that is the American political reality," said Zakharova.

The businessman who heads the list of the accused, Yevgeny Prigozhin, also underestimated the accusations. "Americans are very impressionable people, they see what they want to see, I respect them a lot, I'm not at all upset because I'm on this list, if you want to see a demon, leave them."

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