UNITED STATES

THIRTEEN Russians have now been charged with meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

They used fake Twitter and Facebook accounts, prosecutors said, as they revealed the extent of Russia’s interference aimed at destabilising American democracy.

Three Russian companies have also been indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington for being part of a campaign run by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Vladimir Putin.

The companies include the Internet Research Agency, which runs a troll factory based in Putin’s home city of St Petersburg.

The breath-taking claims of meddling in the 2016 election have been revealed by US prosecutors for the first time, exposing an alleged multimillion-dollar conspiracy which employed hundreds of people.

US deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstien said the federal grand jury indictment exposed a campaign of “information warfare”.

He described how the Russians sought to sow discord in America both before and after President Trump’s election.

By mid-2016 the campaign was spreading disinformation about the Democratic White House candidate Hillary Clinton and supporting Republican Donald Trump.

In other mischief, shortly after the election the Russians were responsible for organising two protests – one in support of Mr Trump and one against – on the same day in New York.

Posing as Americans – in some cases using stolen identities of real US citizens – the alleged conspirators sought to interfere “with the political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016”. A 37-page indictment filed by the special counsel Robert Mueller named 13 individuals, believed still to be in Russia, and three companies for alleged interference from 2014 onwards. According to the indictment, they had a ‘strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system’. An unnamed Texas-based American political operative is said to have instructed them to focus on so-called ‘purple states’ which swing between Republican and Democratic control.

‘Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates and, by early to mid-2016, defendants’ operations included supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J Trump… and disparaging Hillary Clinton,’ the indictment says.

Hundreds of people were said to be involved in the operation, working in shifts and with a budget of millions of dollars. They allegedly used bogus social media postings on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

After it emerged that Facebook was cooperating with Mr Mueller’s inquiry, investigators found some of the Russians discussed how they were covering their tracks, the deputy attorney general has said.

Two of the firms are said to have also held Russian government contracts. Charges on the indictment include conspiracy, wire fraud, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Mr Rosenstein maintains that no evidence exists the Russians’ activities had affected the election result.