US Designates 33 Individuals and Seven Entities Associated with Russia’s Global Disinformation Campaign

The US gov­ern­ment announced last week that as a response to Russia’s aggres­sion against Ukraine, it is des­ig­nat­ing 33 indi­vid­u­als and sev­en enti­ties asso­ci­at­ed with Russia’s glob­al dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign. The US says these tar­gets “uti­lize orga­ni­za­tions that pur­port to serve as legit­i­mate news sites but instead spread dis­in­for­ma­tion and ultra-nation­al­ist pro­pa­gan­da” for Rus­sia. Accord­ing to a US Depart­ment of State press release:

March 3, 2022 …the U.S. gov­ern­ment is tar­get­ing those involved in Russia’s glob­al dis­in­for­ma­tion and desta­bi­liz­ing influ­ence cam­paign, includ­ing in Ukraine.  The Depart­ment of State is des­ig­nat­ing Dmit­ry Peskov, the chief pro­pa­gan­dist of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion and Vladimir Putin’s spokesper­son, under E.O. 14024.  The Depart­ment of the Treasury’s Office of For­eign Ass­est Con­trol (OFAC) is des­ig­nat­ing Russ­ian elite Yev­geniy Prigozhin, who has been pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed under var­i­ous sanc­tions author­i­ties.  Today, OFAC also is des­ig­nat­ing Prigozhin’s wife Poli­na, daugh­ter Lyubov, and son Pavel, who play var­i­ous roles in his busi­ness enter­prise.  In addi­tion, OFAC is des­ig­nat­ing 26 indi­vid­u­als and sev­en enti­ties asso­ci­at­ed with Russia’s glob­al dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign, par­tic­u­lar­ly those backed by Russ­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices.  These tar­gets uti­lize orga­ni­za­tions that pur­port to serve as legit­i­mate news sites but instead spread dis­in­for­ma­tion and ultra-nation­al­ist pro­pa­gan­da for the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.  These 33 indi­vid­u­als and enti­ties have been des­ig­nat­ed under var­i­ous author­i­ties, includ­ing E.O. 13661, E.O. 13694, as amend­ed, E.O. 13848, and 224(a)(l)(B) Coun­ter­ing America’s Adver­saries Through Sanc­tions Act (“CAATSA”).

Read the rest here.

Accord­ing to a US Trea­sury press release, the fol­low­ing enti­ties and indi­vid­u­als were designated:

• Fam­i­ly mem­bers and busi­ness­es of Russ­ian oli­garch Yevge­ny Prigozhin who was pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed for fund­ing the Inter­net Research Agency
• Russ­ian-lan­guage media out­lets Odna Rody­na, Rhythm of Eura­sia, and Jour­nal Kamer­ton, as well as its chief edi­tor, over their links to the pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed Strate­gic Cul­ture Foundation
• Sev­en employ­ees of the Strate­gic Cul­ture Foundation
• Nine employ­ees of the pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed news agency InfoRos
• Four employ­ees of the pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed web­site Newsfront
• Four employ­ees of the pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed web­site Southfront
• Unit­ed World Inter­na­tion­al, a web­site linked to an orga­ni­za­tion owned by Prigozhin and its edi­tor-in-chief, who is the daugh­ter of the pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed Russ­ian aca­d­e­m­ic Alexan­der Dugin
• Geopo­lit­i­ca, a web­site con­trolled by Dugin

The Trea­sury release notes that most of these Russ­ian enti­ties and indi­vid­u­als had already been des­ig­nat­ed in con­nec­tion with dis­in­for­ma­tion efforts and for Moscow’s inter­fer­ence in the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. As a result of the des­ig­na­tion, all prop­er­ty and inter­ests in prop­er­ty of these tar­gets sub­ject to US juris­dic­tion are blocked, and US per­sons are gen­er­al­ly pro­hib­it­ed from engag­ing in trans­ac­tions with them. The cur­rent US sanc­tions are part of a wider pack­age of sanc­tions tar­get­ing Russ­ian elites and their finan­cial net­works and assets, major Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion out­lets, and Russ­ian defense enterprises.

In April 2021, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report report­ed that the US had imposed sim­i­lar sanc­tions against 32 Russ­ian enti­ties and individuals.