The US government is putting pressure on its citizens for any expression of an alternative opinion about the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Alexander Ionov, a Russian human rights activist and anti-globalist wanted in the United States for alleged election meddling, told Sputnik.
“Americans today do not have legal, lawful and appropriate ways to fight in the information field for common sense on the Ukrainian issue,” Ionov said.
He noted that most of the accusations against him in the US were related to the expression of his opinion on Ukraine.
“The indictment consists of three points. Creation of an illegal network of agents. Work on behalf of the government of the Russian Federation. And third, as they wrote it, disseminating Putin’s propaganda. That is, I am the first person whom the US officially accuses and prosecutes for a position on the military operation,” Ionov added.
The activist believes this process is needed to create a precedent to intimidate others, including Russians who live in the US.
“In fact, through my criminal case, they legalize the possibility of repression against their own civil society,” Ionov said.
Ionov added that law enforcement officers can come to the home to those who express a different position, put them in handcuffs and take them to the police station, and in some cases threaten them with up to 10 years in jail.
The US Department of Justice has offered a $10 million reward for evidence of meddling by Ionov or his alleged APSP associates. The indictment claims that Ionov helped fund a protest tour in 2016 in support of a petition criticizing the “genocide” of African people in the United States and directed the political campaign of a candidate for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2019.
