A 61-year-old woman who opened the Russian Center New York and helped organise an “I Love Russia” campaign illegally worked as a Russian government agent while conducting business in the US for nearly a decade, according to federal prosecutors.
Elena Branson – a dual citizen of the US and Russia – was charged on 8 March with acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying US authorities, conspiring to commit visa fraud, making false statements to the FBI, and failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. She remains at large.
The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York alleges that Ms Branson corresponded with high-ranking Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, to open a Russian “propaganda center” in New York City, for which she “received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from the Russian government” for events and messaging at the direction of Russian officials, without registering her role as a foreign agent with US authorities, according to the government’s complaint.
She also chaired the Russian Community Council of the USA, part of a so-called “soft power” Kremlin network funded in part by various Russian government-run entities, according to prosecutors. The organisation launched an “I Love Russia” campaign and organised youth forums to promote Russian history and culture to young Americans, the complaint alleges.
Prosecutors also allege that Ms Branson sought to obtain fraudulent visas for Russian officials and their associates to enter the US.
According to the government’s complaint, Ms Branson, aka Elena Chernykh, was born in the then-Soviet Union in 1961 and emigrated to the US in 1991. She became a US citizen in 1999.
Federal prosecutors allege she began coordinating with Russian officials from at least 2011, receiving Moscow’s approval to open the Russian Center New York in Manhattan in 2012, for which she was under “direct orders” from Russian officials to coordinate events and public messaging.
She also was appointed as chairperson of the Russian Community Council of the USA, formerly the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots of the US. The group shut down its activities last year following the FBI probe.
In March 2016, she was tasked with organising a meeting with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, attempts that appear to have been unsuccessful, according to the complaint.
She also emailed an adviser to Mr Trump following the 2016 presidential election “expressing congratulations for their victory in the presidential election” along with an invitation to the World Chess Championship.
Other correspondence collected by investigators in the complaint appears to show Ms Branson coordinating meetings with US elected officials and Russian officials.
FBI agents interviewed Ms Branson on 29 September 2020, during which she falsely claimed that she “had never been asked by Russian officials to coordinate any meetings” between US business leaders or Russian officials, according to the Justice Department.
Agents seized 34 electronic devices, including 11 mobile phones, from the Russian Center New York office in Manhattan and from Ms Branson, according to the complaint.
In an interview with Russian television last year, Ms Branson said she left the US because she thought the “probability was very high” that she would be arrested if she had stayed.
That interview was conducted by Maria Butina, who was convicted of serving as an unregistered foreign agent in the US before and after the 2016 presidential election after infiltrating the National Rifle Association and other right-wing groups.
In the interview, Ms Branson said that 30 FBI agents arrived at her door “all dressed in uniform, all with pistols, in bulletproof vests” in September 2020.
“They showed a search warrant and ... asked me to go out and searched the apartment for several hours,” she said.
