MOSCOW, November 13./TASS/. Amendments to the Russian legislation passed over the recent years have minimized the possibilities of foreign meddling in the nation’s internal affairs, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RT television on Friday.
"Over the past ten years our legislation has visibly matured and was fine-tuned to preclude any meddling in our domestic affairs by foreign states. Necessary ‘guard houses’ have been put up in various spheres that make it possible to minimize the chances for such meddling," Peskov explained.
He mentioned the restrictions on foreign nationals from owning mass media outlets, as well as certain rules for foreign agents. "Yes, some of our domestic champions of American democracy, you know that we do have some of them, were yelling and screaming that this is a curtailment of rights, and that entire sectors will cease to develop here. Nothing of the sort! They are developing, and [they] are enduring the difficulties together with the others, and surmounting these difficulties all together. Meanwhile, the possibilities for meddling are shrinking," Peskov emphasized.
When asked whether there had been concrete verified incidents of US meddling in Russia’s affairs, Peskov said there had been a lot of them. "You remember that back before 2008 <…> the Prosecutor General’s Office had compiled charts of money transfers to various non-governmental organizations from the US. I recall that this was reported to the president, and we actually made most of this data public. These examples are numerous," he said, stressing that this was regarded as interfering in internal affairs.
Besides, the Kremlin spokesman pointed to the continuing assessments of various domestic processes in Russia, among them incessant criticism over alleged human rights violations, and criticism targeting Russian elections. "Given the circumstances, right now it is inconvenient to mention this altogether. The Americans are hardly entitled now to criticize anyone over elections," Peskov sounded off on an ironic note.
He gave a resounding ‘no’ when replying to a question on whether Russia had ever meddled in America’s affairs. Peskov admitted, however, that someone may have posted commercial ads, for example on Facebook. "There is a policy of selling commercial ads on Facebook, and someone in Russia may have certainly used this. This is a completely normal practice," Peskov pointed out.