The owner of the Russian private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, admitted today that he created and financed the Internet Research Agency, a company that Washington categorizes as a "troll farm" that serves Internet propaganda and interfered in the presidential election in USA in 2016, reported Reuters.

Prigogine, who is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has admitted since the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year a number of things that have been alleged about him for years.

Thus, he admitted that he was the founder of the "Wagner" group, which is now fighting on the front lines in Ukraine, or that he tried to interfere in the American elections.

Now he has admitted that he founded the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, called a "troll farm" even by Russian media, whose employees are accused of running disinformation campaigns on the Internet in the service of the Kremlin.

"I was never just a financier of the Internet Research Agency. I conceived it, created it and managed it for a long time," Prigozhin said in a post on his Telegram channel, distributed by the press office of his Concord catering company.

"It was created to protect the Russian information space from the crude and aggressive anti-Russian propaganda of the West," added Prigozhin.

Prigogine was first sanctioned by the US over his ties to the Internet Research Agency in 2018 and charged with conspiracy to defraud the US.

The Internet Research Agency has been accused of running, in particular through fake accounts on social networks and online newspapers, campaigns aimed at defending Kremlin policies, criticizing Russian oppositionists, denigrating the French presence in Africa or even fueling disputes about Brexit and the US election.

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Along with Prigogine, Washington sanctioned several other alleged members of the Internet Research Agency in 2018.