Russian businessman and founder of Wagner Group says interference will continue as midterms loom.
The powerful Russian businessman and a close Vladimir Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has admitted to interfering in US elections on the eve of a midterm vote in which Republicans will seek to take control of Congress and state-wide offices across the country.
“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere,” Prigozhin, who has previously been accused of influencing the outcome of elections across continents, said in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord.
“Carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can,” Prigozhin, 61, added.
Prigozhin was responding to a request to comment on a recent Bloomberg report saying Russia was interfering in Tuesday’s US midterm elections. The vote is crucial for the legislative agenda in the rest of US president Joe Biden’s term – and could pave the way for a White House comeback by Donald Trump.
The US social media analysis firm Graphika last week said that suspected Russian operatives have used far-right media platforms to criticise Democratic candidates in the lead-up to the midterm elections in a number of US states, including Georgia, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Prigozhin, with a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies, was indicted in 2018 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.
Prigozhin was charged with inciting discord and dividing American public opinion before the 2016 US presidential election, accusations Prigozhin, as well as the Kremlin, has previously denied.
Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said the White House was not surprised by Prigozhin’s remarks. “It’s well known and well documented in the public domain that entities associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin have sought to influence elections around the world including the United States,” she said.
The once-secretive businessman has emerged as one of Russia’s most visible pro-war figures since the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to speculation he is seeking a role in the government.
In September, Prigozhin, also known as “Putin’s chef” because his catering business hosted dinners attended by the Russian president, admitted to founding the notorious Wagner Group private military company in 2014. The US and EU have previously imposed sanctions on Prigozhin for his role in Wagner.
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The series of brazen admissions by the businessman is remarkable given the geopolitical implications of the acknowledgments and the fact that Prigozhin has previously pursued several Russian and western outlets for reporting his links to Wagner.
Prigozhin has frequently boasted about Wagner’s role in the war in Ukraine, where the group is believed to have played a central part in the capture of several cities and towns in the east of the country.
He has also criticised the country’s senior military leadership and has vouched to create his own “militia training centres” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine.
Last week, Wagner opened a “military technology” centre in St Petersburg, which was widely seen as another effort by Prigozhin to promote his military credentials and take a more public role in shaping Russia’s military strategy.
Source : The Guardian
