Federal law enforcement officials appear to be investigating members of the Uhuru movement in St. Petersburg for alleged ties to a Russian government official who prosecutors say targeted American political groups in a campaign to sow division, spread pro-Russian propaganda and interfere in the US election.
Federal agents executed search warrants Friday morning at multiple locations, including the Uhuru House at 1245 18th Ave. S.
The searches appear to be related to an indictment that was unsealed Friday against a Russian man accused of working with the Russian government and intelligence services to try to interfere in US politics.
The FBI and the St. Petersburg Police Department are investigating Uhuru’s house on Friday in St. Petersburg. [ ANGELICA EDWARDS | Times ]
Alexander Viktorovich Ionov, who lives in Moscow, orchestrated a long-running “foreign malicious influence campaign against the United States” on behalf of the Russian government, the Justice Department said in a news release Friday. He worked with American political groups to incite political discord and spread disinformation, prosecutors said.
The indictment referred to a group in St. Petersburg as “U.S. Political Group 1,” although it did not specifically name Uhurus. At a press conference Friday, authorities declined to name the group or say where they executed three federal warrants that morning. However, police in St Petersburg confirmed on Friday morning that federal agents had served a warrant at Uhuru’s house.
Uhuru leaders held their own press conference after law enforcement press conference on the charge.
“We can have relationships with whoever we want to make this revolution possible,” Erita “Achille” Cainion said, later adding, We are in support of Russia.
Omali Yeshitela, a longtime leader of the Uhuru Movement in St. Petersburg who moved to St. Louis several years ago, said he and his wife were handcuffed and taken from their home at gunpoint on Friday morning.
Yeshitel, who still owns properties in St. Petersburg, denied taking money from the Russians but admitted visiting Russia. The Uhuru movement falls under the African People’s Socialist Party, which Yeshitela formed.
“They accused us of taking money from Russia,” he told a news conference Friday afternoon. “We have never taken (money) from the Russian government. But I’m not saying that because I’m morally opposed to taking money from Russians or anyone else who wants to support the struggles of black people.
He said the US government was using his group as a “pawn” in their propaganda war against Russia.
“Don’t tell us we can’t have friends you don’t like,” he said.
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Ionov is the founder of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, an organization funded by the Russian government.
He used the organization to target political groups in the US and other countries, including Ukraine, Spain, the UK and Ireland. The organization contacted group leaders and paid them to attend conferences in Russia, the indictment said.
“The purpose of the conferences was to encourage the participating groups to advocate secession from their home countries,” the indictment said.
Ionov established “partnerships” with some American separatist groups, according to the indictment. He exercised control over the groups, providing financial support through Russia’s National Security Service and ordering them to publish pro-Russian propaganda and information designed to incite political dissent and “promote separatist ideologies.”
The indictment named four of the group’s leaders in St. Petersburg as undisclosed accomplices. Although they have not been named, they include the group’s founder and chairman, another leader who lives in both St. Petersburg and St. Louis, and two others who ran for local political office in 2017 and 2019.
The indictment also describes a fifth person who served as the group’s general secretary until 2018. That year, the person left and formed a second group in Atlanta that also engaged in activities in support of Russian interests.
In May 2015, Ionov paid for the group’s leader from St. Petersburg to travel to Russia to discuss future political cooperation, according to the indictment. For the next seven years, Ionov “exercised leadership and control over senior members” of the St. Petersburg group. He used their leaders to foment discord in the U.S., spreading pro-Russian sentiment “under the guise of an internal political organization,” prosecutors said.
In September 2015, according to the indictment, Ionov again paid the group’s leader from St. Petersburg to attend a Dialogue of Nations conference in Moscow. When he returned to Florida, the leader made it clear to the group members that Ionov’s organization was a tool of the Russian government and that they “didn’t bother us.”
A week later, in an email discussion, the group’s St. Petersburg leaders wrote that it was “more than likely” the Russian government would use Ionov’s organization to sow division in the US
The FBI and the St. Petersburg Police Department are investigating Uhuru’s house on Friday in St. Petersburg. [ DIRK SHADD | Times ]
Ionov and “others acting at his direction” engaged in “agitprop” or “agitation and propaganda,” the indictment said. They will write and send pro-Russian articles to the group in St. Petersburg, instructing them to publish them in their media.
He had the group members provide him with detailed information about their activities. He then compiled the information the groups gave him into reports, which he then passed on to officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service and other Russian government officials, the indictment said.
In 2016, Ionov funded a “four-city protest tour”. The tour supported a “Petition on the Crime of Genocide Against African People in the United States,” which Ionov ordered the group to present to the United Nations, prosecutors said.
He also intervened in the local elections. In 2017 and 2019, Ionov “monitored and supported” two of the group’s members in St. Petersburg on political campaigns, the government said.
Before the 2019 primary election, Ionov wrote to a Russian government official that he was “consulting every week” about a candidate’s campaign in St. Petersburg, according to the indictment. When the candidate qualified for the general election, an officer from Russia’s Federal Security Service wrote to Yonov that “our campaign is kind of unique” and “are we the first in history?”
Ionov later sent additional details about the officer’s selection, referring to the candidate “whom we control.”
Candidates linked to Uhuru ran for local offices four times in 2017 and 2019.
Two of those nominations belonged to Cainion, who spoke at Uhuru’s press conference on Friday.
A reporter asked Cainion if she was the person named in the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator 4.” In the indictment, this person is described as the leader of the agitation and propaganda group.
Cainion confirmed that these details matched hers. She did not say whether she took money from Russia during her campaign.
“Russia is not in your community making you starve. Russia is not in your community and pushing you. Russia is not the St. Pete Police Department that killed Tyrone Lewis in 1996,” she said, referring to an 18-year-old shot and killed by police. “Not Russia, but the US government did this.
Cainion first ran for the St. Petersburg City Council District 6 seat in 2017. In a crowded primary field, she placed sixth with about 7 percent of the vote. That primary featured a two-vote margin between incumbent Councilwoman Gina Driscoll, who finished second and would eventually win the general election, and Robert Blackmon, who came in third and was eliminated from the race. Blackmon won a seat on the city council in 2019. He lost last year’s mayoral race to Ken Welch.
Cainion again ran for a council seat in 2019, this time for neighboring Ward 7. She advanced to the general election, where she was defeated by Councilwoman Lisa Wheeler-Bowman, who took more than 80 percent of the vote.
Blackmon said the news sent shock and disbelief in his political circles and that it underscored the need for a legislative focus on election integrity. It also got him thinking about his 2017 campaign for city council, he said.
“It certainly makes you wonder what if, and also to what extent the influence was exerted,” he said. “The good news is that Gina Driscoll is a good person and has been a good elected official.”
People in the local political community were surprised when the Uhuru Movement did not field a mayoral candidate in last year’s election, Blackmon added.
Jesse Nevel ran for mayor in 2017 with the support of the Uhuru movement. In an election that was largely a battle between then-incumbent Rick Chrisman and former Mayor Rick Baker, Nevel placed third in the primary with less than 2 percent of the vote. But he was in the national spotlight when he became the subject of a racist tirade by another candidate, Paul Kongemi, who told Nevel, who is white, to “go back to Africa”.
And in 2019, Uhuru-backed activist Anne Hirsch is running for the Ward 5 seat on the city council. She finished last among five candidates in the primaries. Deborah Figgs-Sanders ended up winning that seat in a close race against Trenia Cox.
Former mayor Rick Chrisman said Friday’s news made him reflect on the 2017 election cycle, in which he said Newell and his Uhuru backers achieved…
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