false bomb threats blamed on Russia briefly disrupt US vote

Several of these alerts “appear to emanate from Russian internet domain names,” the FBI detailed in a press release.

False bomb threats attributed to Russian destabilization operations targeted polling stations in the United States on Tuesday, November 5, notably briefly disrupting the vote in Georgia, one of the states where the election is being played out, American authorities announced . The FBI, the American federal police, reported in a press release “know of bomb threats at polling stations in several states, several of which appear to emanate from Russian internet domain names”.

“None of these threats have so far been considered credible”underlines the FBI without specifying the states concerned and calling on the population to report any suspicious activity to the police. Georgia elections official Brad Raffensperger said the source of the false bomb threats in his state “had been identified and it was Russia”.

Police and municipal authorities in Fulton County, Atlanta, the state's main city, reported a series of such incidents that resulted in brief closures of polling places. American authorities have repeatedly warned in recent weeks against attempts at disinformation by“Russian agents of influence”especially in Georgia.