United States: The US Treasury Department on Tuesday designated Iranian individuals and entities, as well as two Russian tech firms said to be meddling in the 2024 US election.
More about the news
According to the US Treasury Department, the organization – an IRGC-linked company and an entity linked to Russia’s military intelligence agency – has focused on “stoking socio-political tensions and influence the US electorate during the 2024 US election,” Reuters reported.
“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” according to Treasury’s Acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Bradley Smith.
“The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy,” Smith continued.
Russian embassy statement
As Russia’s embassy in Washington stated, “Russia has not and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States.”

“As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, we respect the will of the American people. All insinuations about ‘Russian machinations’ are malicious slander, invented for use in the internal political struggles in the United States,” the statement added.
Other responses
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not have an immediate response to questions about the note.
Republican Donald Trump won the presidency in November, defeating the Democratic opponent Kamala Harris and emerging victorious from the race after he lost the presidency four years ago.
The Treasury blamed the organization from Moscow known as the Centre for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) for spreading disinformation about candidates in the election, as well as managing and funding the making of deepfakes.

The Treasury said CGE also fabricated a video to give the ” baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate.”
The Moscow-based center, under the instruction of the GRU, employed generative AI to generate disinformation, which was posted on several websites and developed to appear like news sites, according to the Treasury.
It accused the GRU of providing financial support to CGE and a group of US-based facilitators to develop and sustain its AI-help server and an array of at least one hundred sites used for its recent disinformation campaigns.
Another controlling shareholder who was punished in Tuesday’s step was the director of CGE.
A threat assessment report released in October by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence examined the annual threat posed to the United States to assert that it is likely Russia, Iran, and China will seek to influence the election through the use of Artificial Intelligence self-propagating fake or provocative material.