Russia summons US Ambassador over alleged interference in upcoming parliamentary elections

Russia on Friday summoned US Ambassor John Sullivan to foreign office to discuss America’s alleged meddling in upcoming parliamentary elections. election interference, of which t many specific details were disclosed, were allegedly conducted by US tech giants. US envoy Sullivan arrived at Moscow foreign affairs buildings and left 20 minutes after talks. latter did t answer reporters about what dialogue entailed. In a press release issued on Friday, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov met with US Ambassor to Russia, George Sullivan, about “interference in internal affairs of Moscow.” 

“Russian side possesses irrefutable evidence of violation of Russian legislation by American 'digital giants' in context of preparation and conduct of elections to State Duma of Federal Assembly of Russian Federation,” statement from Russian Foreign Ministry on Sept. 10 re. “Some or issues of a bilateral nature were also considered,” it ded. 

Calling US’ alleged meddling in Russia’s democracy as interference that was “unacceptable”, Russian foreign ministry stated that Sullivan was informed that Moscow “has proof” of violations of Russian law by US tech firms ahe of elections of State Duma by end of September. Courts in Russia have earlier penalised US giants like Google, Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp with millions of rubles over security breaches. Russian President Vlimir Putin has also consistently accused American companies of failing to here to Russian state laws and keeping secure citizens' personal data.

Russia penalises US-based companies for 'breach of state laws'

Facebook and Russia have also locked horns in past over removal of government-linked accounts without consent. Russia h also accused US-based social platforms of failing to take down illegal content from websites. Moscow reportedly fined Facebook with 15 million rubles, 17 million rubles against Twitter, and WhatsApp was fined four million rubles in a first-time law breach of law case, according to Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Techlogy and Mass Media (Roskomnzor). As per legislation passed by Russia in 2014, personal data of Russian users must be stored on local servers. Despite law, microblogging platform and Facebook were penalised earlier for t complying with country media law, whereas Google was fined last month.

Im: AP