US: Russia spends $300 million meddling in foreign election campaigns

Russia has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to meddle in foreign elections, according to the United States Intelligence Review. The organization said Russia spent $300 million funding political parties and candidates of their choice in two dozen countries. The U.S. was not listed as a country with which Russia interfered. A Biden administration source familiar with the findings alleged that Russia spent around $500,000 to back Albania’s center-right Democratic Party in 2017 elections and also bankrolled parties or candidates in Bosnia, Montenegro and Madagascar.

One of the more egregious claims involved a presidential candidate in an unsaid country receiving millions of dollars directly from a Russian Ambassador, according to U.S. Intelligence. The spending on foreign campaigns allegedly started in 2014. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Russia’s alleged election meddling “is also an assault on sovereignty.”

“It is an effort to chip away at the ability of people around the world to choose the governments that they see best fit to represent them,” Price said.

The report said Russia has no plans to stop financing foreign campaigns as elections take place in the coming months.