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Russia Reveals U.S. Appeals for Help in Election Hacking Investigation

Niranjan Shrestha / AP

Russia has revealed that the United States submitted two official appeals for information on possible Kremlin interference in the country's presidential elections in 2016.

The first request was sent a week before the elections in November last year, the deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council, Oleg Khramov, told the Kommersant newspaper.

He described the appeal as a “vaguely-worded” document which repeated media reports on possible Russian meddling.

A more detailed request, describing specific IP addresses and evidence of a cyber-attack, was given to Moscow in early 2017, Khramov said.

He claimed that the Kremlin gave the U.S. government "exhaustive answers, including a technical plan," and that Washington had not sought to follow up on the information.

Khramov refused to comment on allegations of Russian interference, but said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already made clear that Russia “did not interfere in the internal affairs of other states.”

U.S. intelligence agencies accused the Kremlin of orchestrating a cyber-attack on the Democratic National Convention in 2016, alleging that government-backed hackers had released thousands of private e-mails into the public domain in a bid to sway public support away from presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton.

The Kremlin has denied all claims.

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