Washington’s claim that Russian media is interfering with the US presidential election should be taken as “gossip”, unless it is backed by solid evidence, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told RT and RIA Novosti on Thursday.
The US Treasury announced a new round of sanctions on Wednesday targeting Russian media figures, including RT executives, saying that it was acting to counter “malign influence operations” conducted on American soil ahead of the November presidential election.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has unsealed indictments against two Russian citizens for violating the 1939 Foreign Agents Registration Act, alleging that they were producing English-language content and disseminating it to American audiences on behalf of the Russian government.
”The American system is strong,” Ibrahim said in the interview, when asked about the accusations against RT. “You should not underestimate their capacity to protect their own interest.”
“If they have concrete evidence, they can take it up. Otherwise I take it as just some interesting gossip and news that we enjoy, but [it] is not taken very seriously” he added.
Ibrahim gave the interview on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, in which he is participating.
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, one of the individuals targeted in the new round of US sanctions, has suggested the Americans have invested so much imaginary power in RT’s coverage and its ability to impact elections in the US, that they would simply cancel them, should the outlet “move out for good.”
She also shared a satirical video on social media which RT released in December 2023 as part of New Year celebrations. It portrayed her as the head of a team in charge of a covert operation to inject US President Joe Biden with a remote-control chip. After a “language pack” is installed, a deepfake version of the US leader is shown performing the Russian hit song “I am Russian” by singer Shaman, right in the oval office.
The Russian government has rebuked the US for targeting journalists. Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, touted it as evidence that the US is becoming a “neoliberal dictatorship.”