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US tasks NGOs with suppressing turnout in Russian presidential election — Foreign Ministry

"At the instigation of Washington, Internet sites are flooded with appeals to Russian citizens to ignore the election," Maria Zakharova pointed out

MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/. The administration of US President Joe Biden has tasked American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with the mission of suppressing voter turnout in this week’s Russian presidential election, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing.

"The Biden administration has assigned US-based NGOs with the direct task of ensuring a reduced level of voter turnout in the upcoming election of the president of the Russian Federation, scheduled for March 15-17. I would like to remind the Biden administration that it is the president of the Russian Federation who will be elected on March 15-17, whereas the president of the United States will also be elected this year, but a little later," Zakharova said. "They are different elections."

"I understand that many in the camp of the liberal Democrats in the US have already delegated to us the authority to manage their own [internal electoral] processes, judging by their remarks, but after all, these are [totally] different electoral cycles," the diplomat said, making an implied reference to longstanding but disproven speculation in the US that Moscow allegedly interfered in the 2016 US presidential election on behalf of winning Republican Party candidate Donald Trump. "At the instigation of Washington, Internet sites are flooded with appeals to Russian citizens to ignore the election. Plans are in the works to carry out cyberattacks, with the participation of leading American IT specialists, on the [Russian] remote online voting system so that it would be impossible to count the votes of a vast number of Russian voters."

"I would like to emphasize that that is precisely the task that has been assigned to them," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stressed.