International

U.S. trying to interfere in our presidential poll: Russia

A woman in Nizhny Tagil walks past a billboard with the picture of President Vladimir Putin.   | Photo Credit: AP

more-in

Putin says Moscow thwarted more than 400 spies last year

Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that Moscow had thwarted more than 400 foreign spies last year and on Monday called on the FSB, the domestic intelligence agency, to act to block further foreign attempts to obtain political, economic and military information.

Mr. Putin, who polls show should be comfortably re-elected on March 18, made the comments in a speech to FSB employees in Moscow where he also spoke of the need to step up Russia’s cyberdefences and strengthen the security of confidential communications systems used by Russian officials.

‘Foreign activity’

Mr. Putin once ran the FSB himself and his comments played into one of his core narratives which depicts Russia as a fortress besieged by hostile foreign powers.

“In recent years, as you know very well, there has been an increase in foreign intelligence agency activity,” he said. “They are working diligently on Russia, using the most modern methods, spy craft and technical espionage means. During the course of last year alone, the activities of 72 career intelligence officers and 397 agents of foreign spy services was thwarted,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow had evidence that the U.S. was trying to interfere in Russia’s presidential election, but did not say what that evidence was. U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of hacking and meddling in the 2016 presidential election, while European politicians have accused it of trying to interfere in several elections. Russia denies those allegations.

Mr. Putin last week announced an array of new nuclear weapons, in one of his most bellicose speeches in years, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield.

On Monday, he thanked the FSB for what he said was its successful counterintelligence work in keeping the arms projects secret.

He said Russia had prevented 25 acts of terrorism last year and 68 terrorist crimes, and told the FSB he wanted it to protect young people from extremism. “Radicalism, whatever political or ideological nature it has, is in essence destructive, and we’re obliged to protect the country and people’s future from this threat,” said Mr. Putin.

Post a Comment
More In International
USA
Russia
election
  1. Comments will be moderated by The Hindu editorial team.
  2. Comments that are abusive, personal, incendiary or irrelevant cannot be published.
  3. Please write complete sentences. Do not type comments in all capital letters, or in all lower case letters, or using abbreviated text. (example: u cannot substitute for you, d is not 'the', n is not 'and').
  4. We may remove hyperlinks within comments.
  5. Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name, to avoid rejection.

Printable version | Mar 5, 2018 10:41:11 PM | http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/us-trying-to-interfere-in-our-presidential-poll-russia/article22935859.ece