The Justice Department announced charges Friday against a Russian national who allegedly entered the United States under a fake identity and gathered information from American citizens about the then-looming Russian invasion of Ukraine.
For years, Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, a 37-year-old agent of a Russian intelligence service, operated under the alias Victor Muller Ferreira, prosecutors said. Cherkasov allegedly established the alias in Brazil, where he pretended to be the son of a deceased Brazilian national, before moving to the US in 2018 under the guise of attending graduate school in Washington, DC, the Justice Department said.
CNN previously reported that “Muller” had been well-liked by his classmates in the US, but that his accent had caught some of their attention.
While in US, Cherkasov, under the alias, allegedly connected with a State Department employee, someone who worked on Capitol Hill, an Israel expert, a United States Naval Academy professor and others. Cherkasov gathered information from those sources, prosecutors said, and reported it back to his handler.
In particular, Cherkasov allegedly gathered information about US policy toward the potential Russian invasion of Ukraine before the war began.
“I was working with my contacts … to find out what the academic community, political advisors and analysts think about the recent Russian military build-up near the Ukrainian border,” Cherkasov allegedly wrote in one message highlighted by prosecutors. “Especially I was aiming to find out what are their advice to the administration.”
Cherkasov allegedly highlighted to his handlers that one of his contacts “told [US Secretary of State is Antony] Blinken … that Russians were always holding the line of respectful talks, but now it’s nothing like that. So, in her reports she confirms that there is no diplomatic…
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