Russia Says U.S. Wants to Portray Moscow as 'Enemy' With Meddling Claims

Russia's ambassador to Washington, DC has said that claims his country is meddling in U.S. politics are part of an attempt to portray Moscow as an "enemy."

The comments by Anatoly Antonov come as CNN reported that Russia is engaged in a continuing and evolving campaign to interfere in the U.S. electoral process.

The Russian embassy posted on its Facebook page the comments by Antonov in response to a media question about what he thought of "speculations" that Russia was trying "to interfere" in American domestic politics.

The post did not specify which outlet asked the question, to which Antonov responded, "some politicians are trying to divert public attention from internal problems by looking for an external enemy who can be blamed for all of America's troubles."

He said that Moscow unfairly stands accused of "driving a wedge into American society, waging a war of disinformation and a campaign against American vaccines."

"All problems are lumped together and Russia is blamed for everything," he added, reiterating Moscow's stance that, "Russia doesn't meddle into the domestic affairs of other states."

It is not clear which particular claims of interference Antonov was referring to, but he did refer to President Vladimir Putin telling NBC in June that the U.S. has offered no proof of Russian meddling.

Antonov's comments on Friday were reported by Russian media outlets. The Kremlin-friendly paper Izvestia gave as context, the statement by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on August 10 that Russia, along with China, was, "making the argument in public and private that the United States is in decline."

Meanwhile, Tass reported Antonov's comments in the context of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bulletin released Friday.

The DHS said that media outlets linked to Russia, as well as China and Iran, "repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories" about COVID and the effectiveness of vaccines.

The DHS advisory appears to chime with a CNN report on Friday that despite Washington's pressure on Moscow through sanctions and warnings, Moscow's efforts to interfere in U.S. elections never stopped and are, in fact, evolving, according to current and former officials.

Sources told the network that Moscow may be trying to exploit the debate inside the U.S. over vaccines and masking.

A report by the U.S. intelligence community this year said the Russian government interfered in the 2020 U.S. election with a disinformation push to denigrate President Joe Biden's campaign and support former President Donald Trump.

Biden referred to Russia's operations two weeks ago to the intelligence community he had received intelligence about "what Russia's doing already about the 2022 election and misinformation," which he described as a "pure violation of our sovereignty."

"There's definitely a spike in activity around elections," Emily Harding, former deputy staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee told CNN, referring to Russian activity in U.S. politics continuing despite Biden's warnings to Putin.

"It never really stopped," she added.

Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment.