Russian Activist Says FBI Tried to Contact Him, Prompt Him to Take Illegal Actions

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Alexander Ionov, a Russian human rights activist and anti-globalist who has a $10 million bounty on his head in the United States for alleged election meddling, told Sputnik that the FBI attempted to establish contact with him and questioned social activists who took part in joint Russian-US conferences.

"We were conducting our first Dialogue of Nations, and some Americans were also present. That day was my birthday, so my friends and I went to a restaurant that night to celebrate. A woman came there, too. I asked who had invited her. It turned out she took part in the Dialogue of Nations, spoke good Russian and six other languages to boot. I told her to have a seat since she was there. And then, at the end of the party, after she had several shots of liquor, out of the blue she told me she worked for the FBI," Ionov said.

He added that the woman had later added him to her friends list on social media.

"It had been five years or so, and then one day I stumbled across her page, and she did indeed work for the FBI. So I've met some FBI agents," the activist said.

He added that the participants of joint conferences had been questioned in the US for three to six hours.

"FBI agents asked them to try to record all their conversations with me, on the phone, at the conferences and personally, to make me say something extremist, ask me for money or propose to stage a coup together. That is, something that violates the US legislation so that they could initiate a criminal case against me," Ionov said.

He noted that he had always laughed at such proposals and emphasized that he could not finance anyone since he was a social activist. Ionov added that anyway, one must be very careful in such situations and not fall for provocations.

"Western intelligence services, especially the FBI, do not shun any means. They even come to Russia," the activist said.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses Ionov of using his Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) to launch influence campaigns in the US which were allegedly monitored by FBI agents who are also persons of interest in Ionov's case. Ionov and his associates allegedly conspired to meddle in the US elections, secretly financing and managing the campaign of a certain candidate in local elections in St. Petersburg, Florida. After that, they discussed the US presidential elections, the DOJ said. From 2014-2022, Ionov allegedly orchestrated what the DOJ describes as "a years-long foreign malign influence campaign" that used US political groups to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda and interfere in US elections.

The DOJ has offered a $10 million reward for evidence of meddling by Ionov or his alleged associates from the African People’s Socialist Party, which seeks reparations for slavery. The indictment alleges that Ionov helped fund a protest tour in support of a petition criticizing the "genocide" of African people in the US.