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2025-01-01 Home Front: WoT
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US imposes sanctions on entities in Iran, Russia over election interference
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[IsraelTimes] The United States has imposed sanctions on entities in Iran and Russia, accusing them of attempting to interfere in the US election this year.
The US Treasury Department in a statement said the entities – a subsidiary of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and an organization affiliated with Russia’s military intelligence agency – aimed to “stoke socio-political tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 U.S. election.”
The Cognitive Design Production Center planned influence operations since at least 2023, the Treasury said, while the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) circulated disinformation about candidates in the election and directed and subsidized the creation of deepfakes.
The Treasury says CGE also manipulated a video to produce “baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate.” It did not specify which candidate was targeted.
Republican Donald Trump was elected president in November, beating Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Bradley Smith, says in the statement.
“The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
It added that the Cognitive Design Production Center had planned influence operations since at least 2023, to “incite socio-political tensions among the US electorate in the lead up to the 2024 US elections, on behalf of the IRGC.”
The Center for Geopolitical Expertise, meanwhile, was said to direct and subsidize the production of deepfakes — manipulations of genuine audio, photos or video of people to create false likenesses — while circulating disinformation about candidates in the 2024 US election, the Treasury added.
Besides the center, its director Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin was also hit by sanctions. The sanctions add to earlier ones imposed on the IRGC, GRU and other proxy groups.
Earlier this year, the US government charged that Iranian authorities sought to undermine confidence in US democratic institutions. They allegedly used “social engineering and other efforts to gain access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both parties,” the Treasury said.
In a separate notice, the Treasury Department also announced sanctions Tuesday on Russian judge Olesya Mendeleeva over the detention of former Moscow city councillor Alexei Gorinov.
Gorinov had been convicted for speaking out against Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
“Russia’s manipulation of its legal system silences dissent and suffocates the truth about Russia’s indefensible war against Ukraine,” Smith of the Treasury added.
On Monday, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Russia called for the immediate and unconditional release of Gorinov.
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Posted by trailing wife 2025-01-01 00:00||
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