During the course of the Russian invasion, Yevgeny Prigozhin first admits to being the head of the Wagner mercenary group, but now he goes one better: the legendary “troll factory” in St. Petersburg can also be traced back to him. It is considered the center of Russian propaganda and is said to have gotten involved in the US election campaign.
The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner has for the first time admitted the establishment of a notorious “troll factory”. He “created and managed the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg for a long time,” said Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in the online service Telegram. The agency’s task was to protect Russia from the “aggressive propaganda of the West’s anti-Russian theses.” Trolls are Internet users who deliberately disrupt online discussions and poison the atmosphere in chat rooms.
According to Prigozhin, he published answers to a catalog of questions from an international research community of Western journalists, including “Spiegel” and ZDF, and praised the work of patriotic Russian bloggers.
The Internet Research Agency is accused of online disinformation campaigns and interference in the 2016 US presidential election. The “Trollfrabrik” uses fake accounts in online networks in particular. In 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on several suspected employees of the Internet Research Agency. Prigozhin, on the other hand, claimed that its operations were too small for any Russian trolls to manipulate Western public opinion.
In an answer to the questionnaire, Prigozhin also criticized the United Nations, which is no longer an “objective instrument” and lives on American money on US soil. “The so-called ‘UN political missions’ are an instrument for subversion in states where there is no pro-Western government,” the 61-year-old claimed.
In the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Prigozhin had increasingly sought publicity. First he admitted to being the founder of the Wagner mercenary group. He recruited prisoners from Russian prisons as fighters and promised them freedom after a six-month combat mission in Ukraine. He also acted as a constant critic of numerous Russian military and called for consequences in the event of defeats and setbacks for generals. Some observers have already accused him of political ambitions, and some even speculated about the idea of ??inheriting Vladimir Putin himself.
