US Sanctions Russians Suspected of Undermining US Presidential Elections

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against 10 individuals and 2 entities suspected of influencing elections in the United States.

This was reported by the press service of the US Department of the Treasury.

Sanctions were also imposed against the Rossiya Segodnya media group and five of its subsidiaries RIA Novosti, RT, TV-Novosti, Ruptly, and Sputnik.

Russian individuals who were imposed sanctions: 

• Margarita Simonyan, the Editor-in-Chief of RT and a central figure in the Russian government's malign influence efforts;

• Elizaveta Brodskaia, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of RT, who has reported to Russian President Putin;

• Anton Anisimov, an RT Deputy Editor-in-Chief, who conducts activities on behalf of the Russian Federal Security Service;

• Andrey Kiyashko, the Deputy Director of the RT English-Language Information Broadcasting;

• Konstantin Kalashnikov, RT’s Digital Media Projects Manager;

• Elena Afanasyeva, an employee of RT’s Digital Media Projects Department;

• Aleksey Garashchenko, the head of RaHDit, was an FSB officer at the time he started leading the group;

• Anastasia Yermoshkina, an affiliate of Garashchenko;

• Aleksandr Nezhentsev, who works with Garashchenko and is an administrator and developer of cyber tools used by the FSB;

• Vladimir Tabak, the Director General of both ANO Dialog and Dialog Regions. “Dialog” is a nonprofit organization founded in 2019 by the Moscow city government that leverages AI technology in online Russian disinformation for use against election campaigns.

The applied sanctions imply all property and interests in the property of the above-mentioned people and organizations in the United States will be frozen. 

On September 4, the Justice Department charged two employees of RT mentioned above, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to US audiences with hidden Russian government messaging.