this morning we unsealed an indictment in the southern district of New York of Constantine Kalashnikov and Elena afanasova two Russian based employees of RT a Russian State controlled media outlet they are charged with conspiring to commit money laundering and to violate the foreign agents registration act that law enacted nearly a century ago was enacted to ensure that the American people were informed when a foreign power engages in political activities or seeks to influence public discourse the American people are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country's free exchange of ideas in order to send around its own propaganda the company never disclosed to the I'm sorry and that is what we alleged to happen in this case in the wake of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 RT which was then known as Russia Today Was dropped by its American Distributors the company ceased its formal operations in the United States and the European Union the UK and Canada banned RT's broadcasting but as RT itself has boasted the government of Russia continued to use RT to direct disinformation and propaganda in the wake of Russia's brutal in invasion of Ukraine RT's editor-in-chief said the company had built quote an entire Empire of covert projects designed to shape public opinion in Western audiences we alleg that as part of that effort RT and its employees including the defendants implemented a nearly $10 million scheme to fund and direct a Tennessee based company to publish and disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government to implement this scheme the defendants directed the company to contract with us-based social media influencers to share this content on their platforms the subject matter and content of many of the videos published by the company were often consistent with Russia's interest in amplifying US domestic divisions in order to weaken us opposition to core russian interests particularly its ongoing war in Ukraine the company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government instead the defendants and the company claimed that the company was sponsored by a private investor but that private investor was a fictitious Persona the charges un sealed this morning do not represent the end of the investigation it remains active and ongoing in a separate enforcement action the justice department is seizing 32 internet domains that the Russian government and the Russian sponsored actors have used to engage in a covert campaign to interfere and influence the outcome of our country's elections as alleged in our court filings President Vladimir Putin's Inner Circle including including sergy Kino directed Russian public relations companies to promote disinformation and state sponsored narratives as part of a program to influence the 2024 US presidential election an internal planning document created by the Kremlin states that is a goal of the of the campaign is securing Russia's preferred outcome in the election