Thursday, March 28

Russia secretly allocated $300 million to foreign parties and candidates to influence world politics


The US State Department ensures that Russia has covertly spent more than 300 million dollars since 2014 on political parties and other public representatives in more than twenty countries with the aim of exerting its influence, according to a message addressed to the embassies in the affected places and which was published this Tuesday the AP news agency. The media has not published which countries it is about.

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The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, signs the message, called a telegram in diplomatic jargon (what in English is called cable) and which cites a new Intelligence assessment of Russia’s covert global efforts to support Moscow-friendly policies and parties. The telegram seen by the AP does not mention specific Russian targets, but does note that the United States is providing classified information to certain countries.

The State Department sent information to its embassies in countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East to share their concerns with their host countries in appropriate cases, according to him Washington Post. Intelligence services believe the Kremlin’s plan is to spend “at least several hundred more million.”

Experience in the 2016 and 2020 elections

This is the latest effort by the Joe Biden Administration to declassify intelligence information on the military and political objectives of the Kremlin. According to the AP, some of Biden’s top national security officials have extensive experience in reporting on Moscow’s activities and served in the government when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a broad campaign to influence the election. 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections.

A senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity did not reveal how much money Russia is believed to have spent specifically on Ukraine, where President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top deputies had long accused Putin of meddling in domestic politics before the invasion. .

The senior official rejected comparisons between Russia’s activities and US funding of media and political initiatives around the world. Putin spent huge sums to “manipulate democracies from within,” he claimed.



www.eldiario.es