WASHINGTON – A Russian-American woman who has headed a cultural organization for diaspora Russian groups in the United States has been charged with being an unregistered foreign agent for promoting the Kremlin’s interests.
Elena Chernykh Branson, 61, was charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to the U.S. Justice Department criminal complaint unsealed on March 8. She also faces a related charge known as a Section 951 violation, which is often referred to as an “espionage-lite” charge.
Branson, who fled the United States in October 2020 after FBI agents raided her Manhattan apartment, is believed to be in Moscow. She did not immediately respond to e-mail and phone calls seeking comment.
Her U.S.-based lawyer, Arkady Bukh, rejected the charges.
“It is very clear there was no hostile activity toward the United States. Cultural exchanges, trying to meet powerful people, there was no sort of espionage activity,” he told RFE/RL.
“She was not trying to sneak into a nuclear plant or a base. Nothing like that. What are we talking about? It’s clearly an attempt by the U.S. government to send a message: We don’t like Russia. We don’t like Russians,” he said.
Asked why she had left the United States or whether she would return to fight the charges, Bukh declined to answer.
For roughly a decade, Branson headed a Russian cultural group known as the Russian Community Council of the USA. The group, which also calls itself KSORS, is an umbrella organization that encompasses dozens of Russian cultural organizations in the United States.
Its goal, the group’s website said, was aimed at “supporting organizations of Russian compatriots [and] to preserve and popularize the Russian language and cultural and historical heritage in the United States.”
In November, the group announced it was shutting down after some of its members were questioned by FBI agents, allegedly about potential violations of the FARA law.
According to the criminal complaint, Branson founded the Russian Center New York, which the Justice Department described as a propaganda center, in 2012 after corresponding with Russian President Vladimir Putin and meeting a “high-ranking" Russian minister.
Branson allegedly sought to advance Russia’s interests in the United States, including by coordinating meetings for Russian officials to lobby U.S. political officials and business leaders, the complaint alleged.
She was allegedly directed to host events “designed to consolidate the Russian-speaking youth community in the United States” in exchange for funding from the Russian government and Russian officials, the complaint said.
FBI agents raided Branson’s apartment in Manhattan in September 2020, seizing iPhones, iPads, computers, documents, and tax declarations. About a month later, she fled the country.
In September 2021, Branson gave an interview to RT, the TV channel formerly known as Russia Today, where she described an early morning FBI raid.
“The agents asked me to go out and searched the apartment for several hours. They didn't tell me what they were looking for,” she was quoted as saying.
Her interviewer was Maria Butina, a Russian woman who served more than a year in U.S. prison after being charged with trying to infiltrate Republican and conservative political circles in the United States, allegedly in an effort to influence U.S. politics.
Butina, who was later released and returned to Russia, was also charged under Section 951.
The Justice Department complaint charges that Branson's Russia Center New York hosted an annual youth forum funded in part by an entity controlled by the government of Moscow.
Through the center, she also coordinated a campaign to lobby Hawaiian officials not to change the name of a fort located on the island of Kauai. The site is the last remaining formerly Russian fort in the Hawaiian-islands and holds significance for the Russian government.
Records show she registered a nonprofit named Russian Kauaiian Association in February 2019 along with five other individuals.
Branson allegedly organized a trip to Moscow for Hawaiian officials responsible for the potential name change to meet with high-ranking Russian government personnel.