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President Vladimir Putin\u2019s foreign intelligence service on Monday accused the United States of trying to meddle in Russia\u2019s presidential election and said that Washington even had plans to launch a cyber attack on the online voting system.<\/p>\n
Putin, who is almost certain to win the March 15-17 presidential election, has warned the West that any attempts by foreign powers to meddle in the ballot would be considered an act of aggression.<\/p>\n
Russia\u2019s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service said in a statement it had information that US President Joe Biden\u2019s administration had set out to meddle in the election, state media reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to information received by the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, the administration of J. Biden is setting a task for American NGOs to achieve a decrease in turnout,\u201d the SVR was cited as saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the participation of leading American IT specialists, it is planned to carry out cyber attacks on the remote electronic voting system, which will make it impossible to count the votes of a significant proportion of Russian voters,\u201d the SVR said.<\/p>\n
The SVR, the main successor to the KGB\u2019s First Directorate foreign spying service, did not set out any evidence for its assertions. There was no immediate reaction from Washington.<\/p>\n
The West casts Putin as a dictator, a war criminal and a killer who has led Russia into an imperial-style land grab that has weakened Russia and forged Ukrainian statehood while uniting the West and handing Nato a post-Cold War mission.<\/p>\n
Putin casts the Ukraine war as an existential battle between a \u201csacred\u201d Russian civilisation and an arrogant West which he says is in cultural, political and economic decline and which sought to humiliate Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n