Russian lawmaker Butina calls US election meddling claims 'pure rubbish'

Moscow: Russian lawmaker Maria Butina said on Wednesday that reported US claims that Russia was trying to influence the 2024 election were nonsense and that Moscow felt that the only winner of the election would be the US military-industrial complex.

Butina was responding after CNN reported that the United States plans to accuse Russia later on Wednesday of a campaign to influence the presidential election using online platforms to target American voters with disinformation.

"The US claims were and are pure rubbish and a witch hunt," Butina, who spent 15 months in US prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent and is now a lawmaker for the ruling United Russia party, told Reuters when asked about the CNN report.

"Russia thinks it does not matter who wins the US elections – the only winner is the US private military-industrial complex. That is what matters – and nothing else," Butina said.

The Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry have repeatedly said that Moscow has not meddled in the US election, but is watching it closely.

The Kremlin in June dismissed as absurd US intelligence assertions that Russia was seeking to meddle in the presidential election and has said that US spies were intent on casting Russia as an enemy.

President Vladimir Putin had suggested in the past that, for Russia, Joe Biden would have been preferable to Donald Trump, though he spoke with irony about Biden.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published on Sunday that Russia saw US Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a more predictable opponent than Trump, but said there was no prospect of an improvement in relations with Washington anyway.

Previous US intelligence assessments have found that Moscow tried to meddle in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Russian officials have suggested that the United States has also meddled in its domestic affairs.