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A former manager of «troll factory» has moved to the US
A former manager at the Foreign department of the so-called «Agency for Internet research», aka the «troll factory» Agata Burdonova has moved to the US. She wrote about this on her page on the Russian social network Vkontakte.
Two sources of the TV channel «Dozhd», also former employees of the «troll factory», have said that Burdonova and another former employee of the agency, Maxim Yelfimov, were aids of the head of the Media and public forums department, Katarina Aistova.
Aistova was not included in the list, provided by the US Justice Department, in which 13 people were accused of meddling in the US presidential election. At the same time her boss, the head of the Foreign department at the «troll factory» Dzheyhun Aslanov, is on the list.
Burdonova and Yelfimov, who have spoken to «Dozhd», had worked at Aistova's department as «managers on duty».
Agata Burdonova has graduated the faculty of liguistics at SpBGU, Saint Petersburg State University. At the time when she was working for the «Agency for Internet research» she was older than most of her co-workers, had an outstanding command of English and also gave English lessons.
According to the information, provided on Burdonova's VKontakte page, she moved to the Unites States on December, 7, 2017. She also registered a YouTube account and started blogging at LiveJournal («Zhivoy Zhurnal»), formely the biggest blogging platform in Russia. She blogs about her life in the States, and the intricacies of applying for the SSN.
She also talks about how she moved to the States with her husband, with whom she now lives in Bellevue, Washington. She says nothing about what she does for a living now. She refused to comment on her moving to the States to «Dozhd», and denied her involvement with the «Troll Factory».
On Burdonova's Vkontakte page there is a photo of her together with Katarina Aistova, whom she tagged, at her farewell party.
Another aid of Aistova, Maxim Yelfimov, also denied his involvement in a text conversation with «Dozhd».
Katarina Aistova refused to talk about the Agency for Internet Research. In 2015, she agreed to meet with a New York Times reporter Adrian Chen, who later published a report about the «troll factory».
One of Dozhd's sources has told that it was Aistova who had a private converation with him, after which he has to quit the job at the foreign department of the «troll factory».
