Prigozhin Confirms Creating ‘Troll Factory’

The owner of Wagner PMC created it in 2013.

Wagner PMC owner Yevgeny Prigozhin confirmed that he created the Internet Research Agency company, also known as the “troll factory”. This is stated in Prigozhin's response to a request from foreign journalists.

“I have never been just the financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I managed it for a long time,” said the entrepreneur.

Previously, Prigozhin denied his connection with the Internet Research Agency. In response to accusations by the American authorities of financing the “troll factory”, the representative of the entrepreneur replied that Prigozhin was “in no way connected” with the “troll factory” and his structures did not interfere in the American elections.

Prigozhin created a “troll factory” in 2013, Novaya Gazeta wrote. According to the publication, the founder of the Internet Research Agency was Mikhail Kurkin, and the general director was Nikolai Chumako. The publication then reported that the company's employees write to order laudatory comments in social networks and the media about Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and President Vladimir Putin, and also “scold” oppositionist Alexei Navalny and the United States. Due to this, it formed a pro-government public opinion. The organization's office was located in the Olgino microdistrict in St. Petersburg.

In addition to the Internet Research Agency, Prigozhin’s “troll factory” included other organizations, RBC wrote in 2017. At that time, it included the Federal News Agency, Economy Today, Politics Today, People's News, and 12 other resources.

In 2018, the U.S. authorities accused Yevgeny Prigozhin and 12 people from the “troll factory” of interfering in the 2016 presidential election. They were put on the wanted list, and a reward was given for information about them. However, in 2020, the criminal case was closed, and Interpol excluded Prigozhin from the international wanted list.

In July, the U.S. State Department again announced a reward of up to $10 million for information about Prigozhin and 12 employees of the “troll factory”. According to U.S. authorities, since 2014, the Internet Research Agency has been carrying out operations to interfere in the U.S. political system in order to “sow discord” among Americans.

Roskomnadzor, Russia's main censorship agency, also plans to launch its own “troll factory”. From the leak of internal correspondence of employees of the Main Radio Frequency Center associated with the Roskomnadzor, it became known that the department had a “Bot-farm” (as the employees called it in the correspondence). Officially, the project is called “Clean Internet” — it is a “software and hardware complex for the automated creation and maintenance of accounts in social media.” Roskomnadzor needs it to publish posts and comments on given topics.