MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. Moscow will draw conclusions following Microsoft’s allegations about Russian hackers’ attempts to meddle with the midterm elections in the United States, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Such allegations are backed by no evidence and are obviously meant to make a maximal political and public "WOW effect."
"It’s a pity that a big international company, which has been successfully operating on the Russian market for such a long time, has to join Washington’s witch-hunting campaign. But it is their choice. And we will have to draw relevant conclusions," the ministry said.
The Russian foreign ministry noted that long ago it had invited the United States to organize a meeting of the bilateral working group on cyber security to discuss such problems on an expert level. "It looks like the American colleagues are unwilling to reveal any evidence proving Russia’s electronic interference they allegedly have not to make a fool of themselves, as there is no such evidence and cannot be any," the ministry stressed.
According to Associated Press, Microsoft claimed that the Fancy Bear hacking group had attempted to target "US political groups ahead of the midterm elections." The company said that the group "created fake internet domains that appeared to spoof two American conservative organizations: the Hudson Institute and the International Republican Institute. Three other fake domains were designed to look as if they belonged to the US Senate."
Microsoft’s President Brad Smith said that "this time, more than helping one political party over another, "this activity is most fundamentally focused on disrupting democracy." The company did not give other details, though the western media and the authorities of some countries alleged earlier that the Fancy Bear group was linked to the Russian government.