My troll farm is meddling in US midterms, ‘Putin’s chef ’ admits
A RUSSIAN businessman nicknamed “Putin’s chef ” has admitted to interfering in the US midterm elections.
The Kremlin was previously accused of meddling in the 2016 US presidential election in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman behind the private military contractor Wagner, has long been rumoured to be funding a “troll farm” in St Petersburg that is responsible for spreading misinformation online.
Addressing speculation that the operation would interfere in this week’s US midterms, Mr Prigozhin said in a statement published by his press office: “Let me say this in an elegant and subtle way, and allow me to use a certain double meaning. We have been interfering [in the US elections] and we will keep doing so.
“We will be doing this carefully, discreetly and in a surgeon-like manner to the best of our abilities: our pinpointed surgeries will be removing both kidneys and liver.”
The US has charged Mr Prigozhin and the Internet Research Agency, the company behind the troll farm, with meddling in the 2016 elections.
Former employees spoke of a team of several hundred people who were assigned different social media platforms and topics, from the Russia-fuelled separatist insurgency in Ukraine to US politics.
Some of the employees were ordered to write posts in foreign languages, assuming fake identities, to sway public opinion in the US and Europe. Although he once described the charges against him as a badge of honour, Mr Prigozhin has not publicly admitted his role behind the troll farm before.
The US State Department this summer announced a $10million (£8.7million) reward for anyone who could provide information on foreign attempts to interfere in the midterm elections including any details on the Russian troll farm.
Mr Prigozhin and the misinformation operation have also been sanctioned for interfering in the US elections by using social media platforms.
For years the Kremlin was under pressure investigate the troll farm, bankrolled by the businessman who spent a decade in prison after being convicted of armed robbery.
Vladimir Putin laughed off suggestions that a group of young Russians in St Petersburg could sway public opinion in the US and later insisted his government had nothing to do with a privately funded business.