DISINFO: No evidence of Russian meddling in the French and US elections
SUMMARY
Numerous Western politicians, US senators and congressmen, as well as French President Emanuel Macron, have accused Sputnik and RT of interfering in the US elections and elections in France, but have never provided evidence for their claims.
RESPONSE
Recurring disinformation narrative that there is no proof of Russian interference in the elections in Western countries and the US - see examples here and here. In reality, there is evidence linking Russian state actors with interfering in electoral processes. Interference in French elections included personal attacks and mocking of the then presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron. Apart from biased reporting in the pro-Kremlin media, it included a made up story about Macron's offshore accounts (the so-called MacronGate) and an actual hack-and-leak operation. According to the Insider and Mediapart, the hacking was purported by the same GRU unit responsible for the hacking of the Democrats' servers in the US. For more information, see EUvsDisinfo analysis “Tackling disinformation à la française". The fact of Russian meddling in the 2016 US election was underlined by the US intelligence community already in January 2017. These findings were confirmed by the US Special Counsel investigation which found that "[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion" (p. 1). See additional debunking of the "no interference" narrative here. Read more about election meddling in France and elsewhere here.