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Diplomat slams US fake news articles claiming Russian troops amassing at Ukrainian border

Earlier, the US-based Politico magazine reported that commercial satellite images showed military hardware and ground troops allegedly amassing near the town of Yelnya in the Smolensk Region

MOSCOW, November 3. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has taken a swipe at articles published in US media outlets that claim Russia was allegedly amassing troops at the Ukrainian border, branding them to be part of a fake news campaign.

She noted that at least three US media outlets - Politico, the Washington Post and Foreign Policy published "as if on cue in a real panic attack" materials that Russia was allegedly moving its troops to the Ukrainian border. "This wasn’t one fake news item, this is an entire fresh fake news campaign in American media outlets," the diplomat said at a briefing on Wednesday.

"Nobody contacted us, we are confident that nobody at all from the Russian side was contacted who could have represented our country. This is classic, when such articles are being put together, with fake information, then the side’s official position is not requested," the spokeswoman added.

On Tuesday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov branded the reports of Russian military equipment "near the borders with Ukraine" as "cheap fake news." The press secretary emphasized that the movement of Russian military equipment and troops inside the country is solely Moscow’s internal affair.

The US-based Politico magazine earlier reported that commercial satellite images showed military hardware and ground troops allegedly amassing near the town of Yelnya in the Smolensk Region. The units included the elite 1st Guards Tank Army. As the media outlet claimed, the deployment marked "a clear deviation from this unit’s standard training pattern." The outlet also emphasized the alleged heightened activity of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine.