There Were 13 Russians Indicted by Mueller's Grand Jury Today (Let Me Introduce Them to You)

So who are the 13 Russians indicted by special counselor Robert Mueller’s team today?

Their goal was to harness social media, from YouTube to Twitter and Facebook, to interact with Americans, promote hoaxes, fuel partisan bickering, and basically, to create chaos among Americans.

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Who was it that said a house divided cannot stand?

Oh, yeah. Jesus.

Mark 3:24-25 NASB “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”

So these sowers of discord weeded their way into American social media and set about dividing. Buzzfeed managed to round up the names:

Evegny Prigozhin – Considered Putin’s “personal chef,” he owns Concord Management and Consulting and the related company Concord Catering. Those are maybe not so much consulting and catering as they are fronts for the Internet Research Agency, otherwise known as Russia’s “troll farm.”

Concord was the primary funding for the 2016 activities.

Said a cocky Prigozhin:

“Americans are very impressionable people, they see what they want to see,” he told Russian outlet RIA on Friday when asked about the indictment. “I relate to them with great respect. I’m not upset at all that I’m on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see it.”

Yeah. Ok.

Mikhail Bystrov:

A retired police colonel, Bystrov is named in the indictment as the executive director of the Internet Research Agency, the body’s highest-ranking position. He’s been referred to as the “founder and CEO” of the troll farm, Russian corporate records show that by late 2016 the IRA was officially closed down. But a 2015 Russian tax filing showed that Bystrov was now general director of a company called Glavset, LLC. Mueller’s team has determined that the company was one of many fronts for the IRA’s ongoing activities.

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I guess when you’re engaged in such shade activity, it pays to move things around, from time to time.

Aleksandra Krylova – She’s the group’s number 3, and hasn’t been previously connected to the troll farms. She was the listed as the leader, at one time.

According to the indictment, Krylova was one of two defendants who obtained visas under “false pretenses” and in June 2014 travelled to the United States. During that trip, she visited Nevada, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, and New York.

Mikhail Burchik:

Burchik, a 31-year-old internet entrepreneur, is listed in the indictment as the executive director of the Internet Research Agency, the second highest ranking post. According to the indictment, Burchik joined on or around October 2013, before reaching his current position by March 2014.

Anonymous International leaked his name as executive director of the troll farm in 2014. He denied it, but the New York Times blew up that denial in 2015 through some matching emails from the document dump, that also matched Burchik’s email address.

He’s named in the indictment as the manager involved in planning, infrastructure, and personnel.

Here’s an interesting one: Anna Bogacheva.

Bogacheva allegedly worked for a department inside the Internet Research Agency that was known as the “translator project.” This was, per the indictment, the project that “focused on the U.S. population and conducted operations on social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.” While on the project, she oversaw its data analysis.

Bogacheva joined Krylova on her trip to the US. Prior to their departure, according to the indictment, they “planned travel iteneraries, purchased equipment […] and discussed security measures (including ‘evacuation scenarios’).”

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The IT manager for the troll farms was Sergey Polozov. According to the indictment, he oversaw “”procurement of U.S. servers and other computer infrastructure that masked [the Internet Research Agency’s] Russian location when conducting operations” in the US.

 Maria Bovda – From November 2013 to approximately October 2014, she served as head of the translator project.

I’m going to assume she and Robert Bovda are related, in some way. So what’s his role?

Robert Bovda was the alleged deputy head of the translator project and attempted to make the trip to the US with Krylova and Bogacheva. But the State Department denied his visa request. The indictment does not note what, if any, relationship Robert has with Maria Bovda.

See? They don’t know, either.

Dzheykhun Aslanov is another veteran of the “translator project.” He joined the troll farm in 2014, and oversaw many of the 2016 election projects. He’s a native of Azerbaijan, and for some reason, others in the “American division” as “Jay-Z.”

He first came to St. Petersburg to study economics at the Russian State Hydrometeorological University, according to the magazine, and lived in the US and visited London as a student.

“Jay was a really not bad manager: not the most competent in this field, well, frankly speaking, generally incompetent, but he had assistants,” a former employee of the Internet Research Agency told Dozhd TV.

Aslanov denied any connection to the organization to RBC.

He was also registered as the general director of a company called Azimut LLC, according to the indictment. He’s charged not only with conspiracy to defraud the US but also committing bank or wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

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Vadim Podkopaev was an analyst for the translator project. He joined the organization in June 2014. His job was to research the U.S. and draft social media content.

So all those ignorant memes of a young, muscular Trump riding a tank? Yeah, probably his work.

Gleb Valischenko – in charge of “posting, monitoring and updating the social media content” for accounts run by the organization. He was the guy pretending to be Americans, creating groups or grassroots events to get the base riled up. He was with the farm for several years, from August 2014 to September 2016.

He was charged in the indictment with serving as the head of sub-groups focused on interfering in U.S. politics, including the 2016 election. If that’s not enough, he’s being charged with wire and bank fraud, as well as identity theft.

Irena Kaverzina:

Kaverzina served on the same project and posted social media content posing as “multiple US personas,” according to the indictment. She joined the organization two years before the election, in October 2014.

“I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed it was written by their people,” she wrote in an email to a family member last September, according to the indictment.

Kaverzina also admitted she and her colleagues were destroying the evidence.

“We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So I got preoccupied with covering tracks,” she wrote.

Like Valischenko and Aslanov, she has also been charged with aggravated identity theft.

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And finally, Vladimir Venkov.

Venkov began working for the troll farm in 2015. His job was to run multiple social media accounts, posing as another dedicated American patriot, of course, post crazy crap, and monitor social media for the frothing, insane feeding frenzy that became MAGA media.

He’s also being charged with identity theft.

So what does all of this mean for the Russia probe?

Well, it certainly means there was Russian interference in our nation’s political progress, as well as the 2016 election.

Now, as to how deep in it Trump or his team may be, we can’t say now. Maybe they weren’t, at all.

Either way, the continued calls of no Russian interference need to be put to rest.

We have this Russia probe now for a reason.

This is it, and it should bother you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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