SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In February 2018, as organizers of the so-called “CalExit” campaign to have California secede from the union and form its own country, a Russian national named Aleksandr Ionov sent electronic messages to a secession supporter, court documents say. Ionov offered funding for a protest that would have supporters make their way into then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s office.
Ionov and the organizer traded proposed designs for posters for the event, and eventually wrote that he sent $500 to the organizer, who on Valentine’s Day led a demonstration at the state Capitol “in support of California’s secession from the United States,” court papers say.
Afterward, Ionov corresponded in Russian with a member of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB, boasting that the FSB officer had asked for “turmoil” in the United States. “There you go,” Ionov wrote, court papers say.
