In 2020, media influence organization Project Lakhta, owned by Prigozhin, developed a new website, United World International (UWI). Since at least 2014, Project Lakhta has used among other things, fictitious online personas that posed as U.S. persons to interfere in U.S. elections, as the IRA did during the 2016 U.S. election. In 2022, UWI suggested that Ukraine would “perish” if it is admitted to NATO. UWI’s chief editor, Darya Aleksandrovna Dugina (Dugina), sought contributors to write articles on UWI. Dugina’s father, Alexander Dugin (Dugin), was first designated in 2015 pursuant to E.O. 13660 for being responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, or sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine. Dugin was a leader of the Eurasian Youth Union, which actively recruited individuals with military and combat experience to fight on behalf of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and has stated that it has a covert presence in Ukraine.

Dugin controls Geopolitica, a website that serves as a platform for Russian ultra-nationalists to spread disinformation and propaganda targeting Western and other audiences. For example, on February 8, 2022, Geopolitica published an article falsely accusing the U.S. and NATO of provoking war with Russia, in order to “further terrorize the American people in all sorts of malicious ways.”

UWI is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13661, E.O. 13694, as amended, and E.O. 13848 for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Prigozhin. Dugina is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13661, E.O. 13694, as amended, and E.O. 13848, for acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, UWI. Geopolitica is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13660 for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Dugin.

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0628