WASHINGTON, January 21. /TASS/. The US Department of State’s statements about Moscow’s alleged disinformation efforts with regard to Ukraine only lead to further degradation of Russian-US relations, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said in response to media questions.
"Within a few hours, Americans published as many as three documents designed to incriminate Russian authorities and state media. We didn't see anything new," he said, according to a statement published on the embassy’s Facebook page. "Washington keeps on blowing a bubble with baseless accusations and continues to deny objective facts about the current developments in Ukraine calling them ‘myths of Russian propaganda’," the envoy added.
According to Antonov, "surprising is another thing, namely the scale of verbal interventions that our colleagues in the State Department are resorting to on the eve of the upcoming meeting of the heads of the foreign ministries of Russia and the United States in Geneva." "It looks like the United States in advance lays the ground for reducing the discussion on security guarantees in Europe to the notorious ‘Russian aggression’ against Ukraine," he noted.
"Such actions are unacceptable. They do not have any added value for resolving the problems of global security and lead to further degradation of bilateral relations. I would like to dwell separately on some of the points listed in the documents mentioned," the Russian ambassador emphasized.
On January 20, the US Department of State released examples of Russia’s alleged "disinformation" efforts and a report on the role of the RT TV channel and the Sputnik news agency in Russia’s "disinformation and propaganda ecosystem." According to the Department of State, "the Kremlin creates and spreads disinformation in an attempt to confuse and overwhelm people about Russia’s real actions in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere in Europe," while RT and Sputnik "play a crucial role in how Russia uses disinformation to advance its foreign policy."