"Today, in fact, Biden unleashed a war against civil society at the hands of his security officials," Ionov, the president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), said at a news conference at the press-center of the Rossiya Segodnya international media group.
Ionov said that activists returning to the United States from events abroad are detained and searched merely because they express their opinions, which differ from the official White House position, and cooperate with their counterparts from other countries.
"When we see various statements in the media, including in the United States, about human rights in Russia, which are not always full of truth and analysis, to say the least, we must realize that in the United States the situation is much worse," Ionov added.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses Ionov of using AGMR to launch an influence campaign in coordination with Russia's Federal Security Service to influence US elections. From 2014-2022, Ionov allegedly orchestrated what the DOJ describes as "a years-long foreign malign influence campaign" that used US political groups to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda and interfere in US elections. Ionov told Sputnik that his guilt was not proven, and that such a case would fall apart in court.