Internet Research Agency building at 55 Savushkina Street, St Petersburg, Russia.
The Internet Research Agency (IRA) located at 55 Savushkina Street in St Petersburg is also referred to as the 24/7 troll factory. According to Lyudmila Savchuk who worked for and then exposed the operation in 2015, the building contains three floors of English speaking Russians paid to troll online Western newspapers, social media, etc. in three shifts. They have a quota to meet and can access a library of clip art images and photographs. There is another building in the same neighborhood leased to an operation called Glavset which is a second internet troll factory.
These 24/7 troll operations are owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch and Putin crony who, under the Concord Management umbrella, also owns the Wagner Group, Russia's largest mercenary firm that works closely with the Kremlin, and Concord Catering which supplies all meals to the Kremlin and the Russian armed forces. Prigozhin is under Western sanctions.
Russian state-owned media outfits like RT/Sputnik/TASS still claim that Ukraine downed Malaysian Flight MH17 on 17 July 2014 which killed all 290 people aboard. However, the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT) which also included Belgium, Ukraine, Australia, and Malaysia, have concluded from the evidence that the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade in Kursk used a Russian BUK anti-air missile to shoot down MH-17. At the UN, Moscow has vetoed every measure to bring the perpetrators to justice via an International Tribunal.
Troll factory owner Yevgeny Prigozhin (blue suit) at a meeting of Russian military brass in the Kremlin.