American journalist Dugan spoke about the reasons for falling under EU sanctions.

John Mark Dugan, an American journalist and former deputy sheriff of Florida, said that his inclusion in the EU sanctions list is related to investigations of corruption and criminal activity in Ukraine. He told about it on December 16 in an interview with Izvestia, commenting on the reasons for his move to Russia.

"I have been actively involved in exposing criminal activity and corruption in Ukraine. We are talking about everything, starting with a large—scale drug distribution network," the journalist said, noting that his latest investigations concerned high—ranking Ukrainian officials.

According to Dugan, European politicians "put their entire careers and reputations on the line" by supporting the "criminal, corrupt regime" in Ukraine, and now the public has begun to understand this. The journalist noted that he moved to Russia after a conflict with the FBI, adding that the American intelligence agencies expressed dissatisfaction with his activities, as it affected representatives of their leadership.

Dugan said that he learned about being included in the EU sanctions list from an article sent by friends and took it "ironically," calling the sanctions an attempt to silence him.

In his opinion, the introduction of restrictions is not a problem in his life, since he does not plan to travel to Europe, instead he decided to link his future with Russia. In addition, the journalist called himself a participant in the "information war" and stressed that the struggle in the information field is no less important than the fighting.

Dugan noted that Western countries have been campaigning for many years to create a negative image of Russia, and sanctions pressure has become part of this strategy.

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The EU announced sanctions against citizen Dugan, who received political asylum in Russia in 2016, on December 15. It was noted that the foreign ministers of the Union countries also approved sanctions against 13 other individuals and legal entities as part of the expansion of anti-Russian restrictive measures.

Prior to that, on November 10, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) revealed a money laundering scheme in the country's energy sector, through which about $100 million passed. As a result, seven people were charged, including businessman Timur Mindich (he is called the head of the criminal scheme).

Later, on December 2, it became known that Ukraine expressed disappointment with the corruption scandal. According to one of the local residents, the words about the alleged ignorance of the heads of the Kiev regime about the situation with corruption in the country "are just making citizens laugh."

On December 10, EU leaders notified Zelensky that NABU had received data from the United States about about $1 billion that had been withdrawn as part of corruption schemes. It was clarified that information about the investigation was passed to the Ukrainian leader during his meeting with the heads of government of Great Britain, France and Germany.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.