Russia’s embassy in the United States has denied accusations of Moscow’s interference in the US presidential election after authorities said hoax bomb threats to polling stations appeared to originate in Russia.
The FBI confirmed Tuesday that bomb threats to polling locations in several states likely stemmed from Russian email domains. Though the FBI said none of the threats were determined to be credible, they forced the temporary closure of several polling places.
It comes after US intelligence last month assessed that Russian operatives were behind a fake video purporting to show someone destroying mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania in late October.
The Russian embassy in Washington said the US accusations were “slanderous and baseless.”
“All insinuations about ‘Russian machinations’ are malicious slander, invented for use in the domestic political struggle of the United States,” the embassy said in remarks reported by state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
The embassy said it “did not receive any evidence in its contacts with US officials or even any requests regarding the story being promoted in the press,” and accused US authorities and media of “hysterics” over alleged Russian disinformation related to elections.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has repeatedly denied any electoral interference by Moscow, saying the allegations were “absolutely unfounded,” according to RIA Novosti.
CNN has reported that a spinoff of the Russian “troll factory” that targeted the 2016 US presidential election appeared to be at the heart of a disinformation campaign trying to sway Western and especially US audiences, according to a joint investigation with researchers at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.
