Russia on Saturday denied being behind fake videos linked to the US election, after US intelligence services accused it of being responsible for a fake video showing an immigrant who claims to have voted multiple times.
“We have taken note of the statement by the American intelligence services accusing our country of broadcasting fabricated videos of electoral violations in the United States. We consider these allegations to be unfounded,” the Russian Embassy in the United States said in a statement published on Telegram and distributed by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The embassy emphasizes that Moscow has not received “any evidence supporting these allegations when communicating with American authorities.”
“As President Vladimir Putin has reiterated, we respect the will of the American people. Any insinuations about Russian machinations are malicious slander,” she added.
«Trolls russes»
The head of elections in the American state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, reported Thursday evening in a press release “a video purporting to show a Haitian immigrant possessing several Georgia identity cards and claiming to have voted several times.”
“This is an example of the targeted disinformation that we have seen during this election and in others,” added Mr. Raffensperger, saying that it was “probably a product of troll farms Russians.
Suspicions confirmed by the Federal Police (FBI), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in a joint press release released on Friday.
“The intelligence community concludes that Russian agents of influence fabricated a recent video falsely showing individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia,” according to the text.
“This activity on the part of Russia is part of a broader framework of attempts by Moscow to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the American election and to fuel divisions among Americans,” affirm these federal agencies.
They specify that they expect these attempts to continue until the vote and “in the following weeks and months”.
In the fake video, a man in a vehicle is seen saying in a monotone voice to the camera: “We are from Haiti. We arrived in America six months ago, and we already have American citizenship. We vote for Kamala Harris.”
He then claims that he and his friends voted in several counties and he shows a series of driver’s licenses.
Georgia’s elections official asked “Elon Musk and the management of other social media platforms to remove” the video.
But the 20-second clip can still be viewed on X, Elon Musk’s social network, which since July has taken up the cause for Donald Trump against Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris.
