Russia Summoned U.S. Ambassador Over Alleged Election Interference: Report

Russia's foreign ministry said Friday it had summoned U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan to meet with its deputy foreign minister over alleged interference in the country's upcoming parliamentary election.

Reuters reported that Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement it had "undeniable proof" that U.S.-based tech giants have violated Russian laws ahead of the September 19 election.

"In this regard it was stated that interference in the internal affairs of our country was absolutely unacceptable," the statement said, according to Reuters.

The foreign ministry did not specify any companies or exact violations in its statement. However, Russia said earlier this month that it may consider Apple and Google to be guilty of meddling in elections if they did not remove an app created by allies of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny from their online stores.

The app associated with Navalny—a prominent activist currently in jail—is said to encourage Russian citizens to vote for candidates in local elections who are in opposition to the current national government.

Russia threatened to fine Apple and Google in early September if they did not comply by removing the app. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at that time: "Such arrogant and selective behavior and demonstrative ignoring of repeated requests from the relevant Russian agencies regarding the content designated as extremist is particularly unacceptable in the context of the current electoral processes."

The Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported Friday that Zakharova claimed the U.S. has been untruthful in its early reports about Sullivan's visit with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

The Russian RIA Novosti news agency quoted U.S. embassy spokesperson Jason Rebholz as saying Friday's meeting covered a "range of bilateral issues" in support of U.S. President Joe Biden's "commitment to a stable, predictable relationship with Russia."

"I've seen three [different] reasons for the summoning of the U.S. envoy to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Actually, the Foreign Ministry did the summoning, and the Foreign Ministry knows the true reason for it," TASS quoted Zakharova as saying in her Telegram channel Friday. "There is only one reason—the interference in the Russian elections. We hope this is what the US diplomats will report back to Washington, not what the US embassy said in its detached from reality press release."

Newsweek contacted the U.S. Embassy in Russia and the U.S. State Department for comment but did not hear back from either in time for publication.