US authorities have accused Russia of playing a major financial role in a Kremlin-backed plan to launch an "information war" on the United States for goals including the impact on midterm elections next month.
A senior government official said the criminal case revealed on Friday would make Elena Alexifna Khusyanova, 44, the first person charged with trying to intervene in the 2018 US election.
Prosecutors said Khusianova was the chief accountant for a project founded by influential Russian businessman Yevgeny Viktorovich Brzezhin with two companies controlled by them.
The two companies were among the three entities and 13 Russia's special investigator Robert Muller accused in February of conspiring to intervene in the 2016 US presidential election in support of Trump at the expense of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
The informed official said the case against Khusianova had been filed in Virginia and was not part of the Mueller investigation because it related to activities related to the 2018 election and therefore did not fall within his jurisdiction.
Prosecutors said the plotners used social networking sites and other means to launch a "war of information on the United States" in an attempt to shake confidence in candidates for a US political post and in the US political system.
