Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman known as “Putin’s chef” because of his catering contracts with the Kremlin, reportedly admitted on Monday that he had interfered in the US election and said he would continue to do so, for the first time confirming allegations he has been making. . rejecting for years.
“We have interfered, we are interfering and we will continue to interfere. Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way,” Prigozhin said in remarks posted by his spokesmen on social media.
Prigozhin, a dozen other Russian citizens and three Russian companies were accused of operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord and dividing American public opinion ahead of the 2016 US presidential election.
They were indicted in 2018 as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.
In 2020, the Justice Department moved to dismiss charges against two of the accused firms, Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering, saying they had concluded that a trial against a corporate defendant with no presence in the United States and no prospect of significant punishment even if convicted, would likely expose delicate law enforcement tools and techniques.
Prigozhin had denied involvement in election interference until now.
He has also previously denied links to Wagner’s mercenary force, but in September he admitted to founding and funding it in 2014 and began speaking openly about his involvement in the war in Ukraine.
“He allegedly oversaw and approved their political and electoral interference operations in the United States, which included the purchase of US computer server space, the creation of hundreds of fictitious individuals online, and the use of stolen identities of individuals from the United States. United States”, the FBI he said in a wanted poster in March.
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Louis Casiano of Fox News and the Associated Press contributed to this report.