MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. The issue of cyber attacks allegedly carried out by ‘Russian hackers’ is being used by US parties to justify their failures, and creates a negative backdrop for bilateral relations, Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky told TASS on Wednesday.

"It has become laughable. When in 2016 the Democrats were defeated at the polls, to create an image of a victim, and hide their skeletons in the closet, and justify failures - the blame was apportioned on Russian hackers, who allegedly hacked servers of the Democratic Party’s National Committee. Now the Democrats have won back their positions, and the Republicans need those to blame for all these troubles," Slutsky said. According to the MP, "the myth on Russian hackers is becoming a red herring".

The head of the committee stated that no one is interested in the truth anymore. "At the same time, it is impossible not to notice that fake news such as this creates an excessive negative background for Russian-US relations," he added.

Meanwhile, Slutsky recalled that in his recent statement US President Joe Biden said Russia was not behind a ransomware attack targeting at least 20 companies. "This rhetoric arouses cautious optimism and hope that Washington may give up the practice of throwing allegations against Russia. And the proposals on Russia’s alleged involvement in some cyber attacks are absurd," the lawmaker said.

Bloomberg said on Tuesday that cloud networks of the Republican Party’s National Committee, serviced by Microsoft, had been subjected to a cyber attack. The agency claimed that hackers allegedly linked to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) could have been behind the attack. According to the report, the attack was carried out through Synnex, a provider of IT services for the committee.

Later a Bloomberg journalist tweeted a statement by Chief of Staff at the Republican National Committee Richard Walters, saying that hackers that had attacked the computer networks of the US Republican Party’s National Committee, but were unable to gain access to its information.