The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned the United States on March 7 that U.S. diplomats would be expelled if Moscow believes they are interfering in its internal affairs, including elections.
The warning was delivered to U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy about a week before Russia’s March 15 presidential election, in which President Vladimir Putin is running for reelection.
Russian officials said that U.S. diplomats or staff who are working with certain nongovernmental organizations (NGO) in Russia will be forced to leave the country, state-run media outlets have reported. The ministry said that the legal status of three U.S. NGOs has been changed, adding these groups are engaged in “projects of an anti-Russian nature, which are aimed at recruiting ‘agents of influence’ under the guise of educational and cultural exchanges,” state media reported.
The foreign ministry stated that the U.S. Embassy is currently supporting those NGOs, which are “recruiting ‘agents of influence’ under the guise of educational and cultural exchanges.” It isn’t clear what groups the ministry was referring to.
The government will act to prevent “any subversive actions and dissemination of disinformation in the context of elections and a special military operation, will be strictly and resolutely suppressed," the Russian government added, if they allegedly violate Russian law.
Russia has referred to the war in Ukraine as a special military operation.
There was no immediate public comment from the U.S. Embassy in Russia about the warning.
Mr. Putin is likely to secure another term in office in the presidential election, which runs from March 15 to March 17, because of the lack of opposition candidates, many of whom have been removed from eligibility.
Tensions have remained high between Washington and Moscow amid the Russia–Ukraine conflict, as the United States and other NATO states have provided billions of dollars in military aid, weapons, and intelligence to Kyiv. Those tensions increased when Russian opposition candidate Alexei Navalny died in a Russian prison in mid-February, with U.S. officials casting doubt on his official cause of death.
Meanwhile, the United States has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, although a number of claims that surfaced in the media regarding whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Moscow have been disproven.
A special counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller in 2019 concluded that there wasn’t enough evidence to show there was any collusion. Later that year, the Department of Justice’s inspector general issued a report that found significant errors and omissions when the FBI opened its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump–Russia claims.
U.S. officials, including the FBI, have warned that China, Russia, and Iran may attempt to carry out cyberattacks or attempt to interfere with the 2024 election.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a conference this year that more countries may attempt to influence or interfere with U.S. elections. He didn’t provide any specific examples.
“What we have seen since 2018 is that we’ve seen more foreign actors, more nation-states want to get in the business of trying to interfere or at least influence elections. And we’ve seen the techniques evolve. In that sense, every election cycle presents bigger challenges,” he said in January.
“All those partnerships are exponentially more sophisticated and effective than they were in each prior election cycle,” he said. “So we are, in that sense, much more on guard than we were in earlier cycles. So the threats are more challenging but the defense is better.”
Mr. Wray said that China and Russia appear to be trying to flood the United States with disinformation.
“Americans can and should have confidence in our election system. None of the election interference efforts that we’ve seen over the cycles that [Gen.] Paul [Nakasone] and I have been working on together have put at jeopardy the integrity of the vote count itself in any material way.”
