Internet Research Agency

Several Russian media outlets have claimed that the agency is funded by Evgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch restaurateur called “the Kremlin’s chef”…  for his lucrative government contracts and his close relationship with Putin. Last known address is 55 Savushkina Street, St. Petersburg A handful of websites have appeared in March 2024 with names suggesting a focus on news close to home: D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and a newer sister publication, the Miami Chronicle. Researchers and government officials say they are not local news organizations buy mimic them to push Kremlin propaganda by interspersing it among an at-times odd mix of stories about crime, politics and culture. Researchers at Clemson disclosed the Russian connections behind the D.C. Weekly website in a report in December 2023. After their disclosure, Russian narratives began appearing on another site that had been created in October 2023, Clear Story News. Since then, new outlets have appeared. The websites of the Chicago Chronicle and the New York News Daily, whose name clearly is meant to evoke the city’s storied Daily News tabloid, were both created on Jan. 18 2024 according to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which monitors domains. D.C. Weekly published a number of Kremlin narratives beginning in August 2023, according to Clemson’s study. One included a false claim that the wife of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, bought more than $1.1 million worth of jewelry at the Cartier store in New York during his visit to the United Nations in September.. Analysts anticipate attempts to disrupt the 2024 American elections through cheap, highly targeted and obviously effective disinformation.