Russians dismiss U.S. election charges

MOSCOW — Russian officials had disdainful words on Saturday for a U.S. indictment that charged 13 Russians with interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Children’s stories, the plot of a preposterous Hollywood movie and “just blabber” were a few of the glib analogies they pressed into service.

The language, while dismissive, suggested that Russia feels cornered by the unrelenting allegations that the Kremlin had a role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s election. Repeated denials and hope that the intrigue would fade away have been Moscow’s strategy for maintaining the popular expectation that its ties with Washington would improve under Trump.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials have deflected the suspicion that Trump colluded with Moscow and the evidence of Russians seeding social media platforms with proTrump content with indignant cries of “Russophobia.”

“The story is straight from a Hollywood crime comedy, probably with the title ‘13 Friends of Putin’,” said Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of Russia’s parliament.

The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury alleges that a wealthy entrepreneur, widely dubbed “Putin’s chef,” funnelled money to a so-called troll farm, which sent operatives to the U.S., created fictitious social-media accounts and used them to spread tendentious messages. The aim either was either to influence voters or to undermine their faith in the U.S. political system, according to court documents.

“They are just children’s statements,” Andrei Kutskikh, Putin’s envoy for international information security policy, said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “Until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber.”