The DoJ release is interesting (emphasis mine):
… a front for this global foreign influence campaign to advance Russia’s foreign policy objectives. Through these operations aimed at influencing the course of international affairs, the defendants worked to weaken U.S. partnerships with European allies, undermine Western sanctions and promote Russia’s illicit actions designed to destroy the sovereignty of Ukraine. The defendants schemed to affect U.S. policy towards Russia through staged events, paid propaganda and the recruitment of at least one American citizen (CC-1) to do their bidding in an unofficial capacity and without notice to the Attorney General, as required by law. In pursuit of these goals, the defendants sought to co-opt U.S. and European politicians and to influence public opinion in their favor, using American and European citizens as their proxies to validate them, bring them access to power, evade sanctions and obscure their true objective to advance Russia’s foreign policy.
Among other things, the defendants contacted members of the U.S. Congress from 2012 into 2017 ….
Russian Legislator Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Babakov and Staff Members Aleksandr Nikolayevich Vorobev and Mikhail Alekseyevich Plisyuk Charged With Conspiring To Have A U.S. Citizen Act As An Unregistered Agent Of The Russian Government In The United States