MOSCOW (Agencies): The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation said that “the servers and technical support for that very application” Smart Voting “mainly come from the United States.” As noted by the official representative of the department, Maria Zakharova, Moscow has “irrefutable evidence of violations of Russian law by American” digital giants “. In this regard, the American ambassador was urgently summoned to the Foreign Ministry yesterday.
The United States supports the “Smart Voting” project, the developers of which “are somehow connected with the Pentagon.” This was announced on Saturday, September 11, by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
According to her, yesterday’s visit of the American Ambassador John Sullivan to the Foreign Ministry was connected precisely with Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of Russia, in particular in the upcoming elections to the State Duma. As stated on Smolenskaya Square, Moscow has “irrefutable evidence of violations of Russian law by American” digital giants”.
“A lot of materials have already been published by Roskomnadzor and our law enforcement agencies. Roskomnadzor has established IP addresses: the servers and technical support for the same Smart Voting application mainly come from the United States,” Zakharova said on the air of Radio Russia.
In addition, she named the United States as the largest territorial group, “where attempts to bypass application locks come from.”
“It is clear that neither Ambassador Sullivan, nor the State Department headed by Anthony Blinken, nor President Joseph Biden control those digital giants who have put at the forefront of the Foreign Ministry when summoning the ambassador for a conversation,” such an opinion, in turn, in a conversation with “Gazeta.Ru” expressed by political scientist Dmitry Drobnitsky.
Roskomnadzor previously restricted access to the Smart Voting website because it was used to continue the activities of FBK, an organization recognized as extremist in Russia. The department also warned foreign IT companies against interfering in the elections to the State Duma.
Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president, also spoke about the fact that there is no doubt about attempts to interfere in the upcoming parliamentary elections in the Russian Federation from the outside. The system that “hedges” these risks is already well established, he added. At the same time, one must “clearly realize that such risks do exist,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Earlier, on September 5, the Moscow Arbitration Court ruled to ban Google and Yandex from displaying a link to Smart Voting in search results. As the Gazeta.Ru correspondent was convinced, as of September 11, Yandex complied with the court’s decision, Google did not.
“They talk about Western interference in our elections. The essence of the application is to tell people about the strongest opponent of the authorities in a particular single-mandate constituency. And then the voters themselves decide whether they need such a candidate, vote for him or not. In its meaning, this is an informational project, it performs advisory functions, nothing more. And even in the opposition environment there is no consensus about whether this application is useful, whether it is “smart” enough or not. Many points of view have been expressed about its low efficiency. But the reaction of the current government in itself tells us exactly the opposite,” political analyst Grigory Alexandrov said in an interview with Gazeta.Ru.
The elections to the State Duma will be held from 17 to 19 September. At the same time, regional and municipal elections will be held.
On a single voting day, direct elections are to be held for the heads of nine constituent entities of the Russian Federation (in three more regions, deputies of legislative assemblies will be elected) and deputies of 39 regional parliaments.
A week before the vote, VTsIOM presented the party ratings. The level of support for United Russia was 29.3%, according to the Public Opinion Foundation – 29%. The rating of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is estimated by sociologists at 16.6%, the Liberal Democratic Party – at 7.8%, the party “Fair Russia – Patriots – For the Truth” – at 6.1%.
In the course of an apartment survey, the level of support for the United Russia party was 30%, the Communist Party – 17.4%, the Liberal Democratic Party – 12.2%, the Just Russia – Patriots – For Truth party – 4.9%, the VTsIOM release notes.
The rest of the parties, according to preliminary estimates, are unlikely to be able to count on overcoming the 5% barrier to enter the State Duma.
