Federal prosecutors charged a Russian politician and 2 staffers with conspiring to violate US sanctions, break foreign lobbying laws, and commit visa fraud

• Prosecutors charged 3 Russians with conspiring to violate US sanctions, break foreign lobbying laws, and commit visa fraud.
• One of the defendants is a deputy chairman in the Russian legislature and the other 2 are his staffers.

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday charging a Russian politician and two of his staffers with conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws, skirt US sanctions, and commit visa fraud.

The defendants are Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Babakov, a deputy chairman in the Russian legislature, and his staff members Aleksandr Nikolayevich Vorobev and Mikhail Alekseyevich Plisyuk.

Babakov, Vorobev, and Plisyuk are accused of having "orchestrated a covert Russian propaganda campaign in the U.S. in order to advance Russia's malevolent political designs against Ukraine and other countries, including the U.S.," Damian Williams, the Manhattan US attorney, said in a statement announcing the indictment.

The charging document shows that "Russia's illegitimate actions against Ukraine extend beyond the battlefield, as political influencers under Russia's control allegedly plotted to steer geopolitical change in Russia's favor through surreptitious and illegal means in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West," Williams added.

All three defendants are based in Russia, and they will almost certainly never be extradited to the US to face trial.

According to law enforcement officials, Babakov, Vorobev, and Plisyuk "operated an international foreign influence and disinformation network to advance the interests of Russia" from 2012 to at least 2017.

They used a Russia-based nonprofit organization called the Institute for International Studies "as a front for this global foreign influence campaign" to push Russia's foreign policy goals, the Justice Department said. Those goals included hurting the US's relationship with its European allies, undermining Western sanctions, and promoting "Russia's illicit actions designed to destroy the sovereignty of Ukraine."

The defendants are also accused of using "staged events, paid propanda, and the recruitment of at least one American citizen," identified as CC-1 in the charging document, "to do their bidding in unofficial capacities."

And they allegedly contacted US lawmakers from 2012 to 2017 "to seek meetings and to offer free travel to at least one Congressmember on behalf of Babakov, as well as other foreign officials aligned and associated with" him, the Justice Department said.

In one instance US officials highlighted, CC-1 in 2012 tried to set up a meeting between Babakov and several members of Congress by, among other things, offering a congressmember an "all expenses paid" trip to meet with European politicians and get an award. But lawmakers rejected the efforts, the Justice Department said.

The three defendants also tried in March 2017 to arrange a meeting between Babakov and a member of Congress whose purpose would have been to "strengthen the ties of cooperation between" Russia and the US, prosecutors said. They also contacted at least one congressmember and offered them a free trip to Crimea "as a service to benefit the purported 'Prime Minister of Crimea,'" Sergey Aksyonov, who was organizing and would be attending the conference.

The US Treasury Department sanctioned Aksyonov in 2014, the same year that Russia annexed Crimea, for "his role in actions and policies threatening the sovereignty of Ukraine." The congressmember did not accept the offer to go to Aksyonov's conference, the department said.

Prosecutors added that in connection with their influence activities, Babakov, Plisyuk, and Vorobev submitted "fraudulent visa applications" in February 2017, saying they wanted to travel to the US "under the false pretense of each traveling alone for a 'vacation,' when in fact they planned to conduct unofficial meetings with U.S. politicians and advisors to further their influence objectives."

But the Treasury Department sanctioned all three defendants in June 2017 and their visa applications were ultimately rejected in January 2018, prosecutors said.