Putin's Mercenary Chief Admits to Interfering in U.S. Elections

© Reuters

By Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com -- A Russian businessman widely seen as a key ally of President Vladimir Putin admitted on Monday to interfering with U.S. elections, only a day before midterm elections that may change the country's course for the next two years. 

“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering and we will interfere,” Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has been accused of running a “troll factory” to influence the outcome of votes in several Western countries, said in a statement quoted by his team. 

“Carefully, precisely, surgically and the way we do it, the way we can,” Prigozhin said, according to AFP.

Prigozhin, was responding to a request for comment on a Bloomberg report saying Russia was interfering in the midterms.

Prigozhin's statement lends credence to long-standing allegations by the Democratic Party of Russian interference, chiefly to the benefit of the Republican Party. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had concluded in 2018 after a long investigation that, during the 2016 presidential election, Russia had tried to damage the campaign of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton, boost the chances of her opponent Donald Trump and broadly sow distrust in American democracy. Trump and the Republican Party disputed those findings. 

Prigozhin has cast off inhibitions about being portrayed as an influential figure in Kremlin politics this year. He made headlines in September by confirming what many had previously reported, namely, that he had founded the Wagner mercenary group that has pursued Russian policy goals from Ukraine to the Central African Republic, as well as in Syria and Libya. The group has actively recruited among Russia's prison population this year to drum up recruits for the campaign in Ukraine.