DISINFO: The West groundlessly accuses Russia of interference in domestic politics and cyber-attacks

This is a recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative claiming that Western accusations of Kremlin involvement in cyber-attacks and interference in the domestic politics of foreign states are unfounded, motivated by Russophobia and lack any supporting evidence.

It is not true that there is no evidence to support Western accusations of Kremlin involvement in cyber-attacks and in election interference. Evidence of Russia's interference in US elections was uncovered by several US investigations. Russia's interference was reported starting in January 2017 by a US Intelligence Community report and was then reconfirmed in a new report in March 2019, produced by the Special Counsel probe led by Robert Mueller, after two years of investigation.

In 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (NIC) released an analysis of foreign threats to the 2020 US presidential election which reported the activity of Russian state actors and proxies in spreading disinformation aimed at influencing these elections.

The UK has provided convincing evidence of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum.

Media investigations and parliamentary inquiries have uncovered evidence linking Russian state actors with interference in various electoral processes, including the 2017 French Presidential elections, the 2017 German Parliamentary elections, the 2016 constitutional referendum in Italy and the Dutch referendum on the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine. Electoral interference by Russia has been extensively documented in numerous countries around the world. Read our article on Russian election meddling in EU countries and in the US here.

Government investigations in different countries have produced evidence of cyberattacks and hacking activities, sponsored by Russian state actors, targeted on foreign states and organisations, including Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Ukraine, UK, US, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Romania, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the Davos World Economic Forum.

Since 2014 Ukraine has been the target of an unprecedented number of cyber attacks. Ukraine's security services attributed many of these attacks and cyber-espionage activities to Russia. Norway's Police Security Service (PST) also reported that hackers linked to the GRU took part in a 2019 cyber-attack on its Parliament.

In 2020, cyberattacks linked to Russia have targeted companies researching Covid-19 drugs and vaccines, as well as major US federal agencies and civilian and governmental entities in the 2020 Solar Winds attacks.

Read similar cases claiming that No evidence supports the West’s accusations of Russian involvement in cyber-attacks and election interference, that There is no evidence of Russian involvement in the SolarWinds hacking attack, and that Accusing Russia of cyber-attacks is purely Russophobic.

See here for further background on Russian interference in various electoral processes in Europe.