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Russia Denies U.S. and UK Allegations of Global Cyber Attack

Dmitry Peskov Mikhail Metsel / TASS

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that British and U.S. allegations that Russia was conducting a global cyber espionage campaign lacked any evidence.

The United States and Britain said on Monday that Russian government-backed hackers had infected computer routers around the world, targeting government agencies, businesses and critical infrastructure. The joint alert said the cyber campaign was intended to advance spying, intellectual property theft and other “malicious” activities and could be escalated to launch offensive attacks.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a conference call Tuesday that London and Washington had not presented any evidence regarding the hacking.

“We don’t know what the latest accusations are based on,” he was cited as saying by the state-run TASS news agency.

“As before, no one — neither our colleagues in the U.S. or in Britain — has bothered to provide at least some kind of argumentation, even of the weakest kind.”

“From our point of view, these unsubstantiated accusations are utterly devalued,” he added.

U.S. intelligence agencies last year accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 election with a hacking and propaganda campaign supporting Donald Trump’s campaign for president.

Last month the Trump administration blamed Russia for a campaign of cyber attacks that targeted the U.S. power grid.

Reuters contributed reporting to this article.

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