MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Tuesday dismissed a report from Microsoft that said Russia was ramping up a disinformation campaign ahead of the Paris Olympic Games, calling it “absolute slander”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the Microsoft report as “blanket criticism that has no basis whatsoever”.

A report from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Centre said Russia is waging an intense disinformation campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the International Olympic Committee and stoking fears of violence at this summer’s Paris Games, which open July 26.

“Russia is ramping up these malign campaigns against France, President [Emmanuel] Macron, the IOC, and the Paris Olympics,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre, said in a blog post on Sunday.

Peskov told reporters, “This constitutes absolute slander and nothing more. It has nothing to do with reality.”

The Russian Embassy in Paris on Tuesday also said it does not interfere in France, after suggestions Moscow was involved in a stunt involving the laying of coffins near the Eiffel Tower.

In a statement, the embassy said it “expresses a decisive protest against the latest Russophobic campaign unleashed by French media” and said “Russia has not interfered and does not interfere in France’s internal affairs.”

Three people left five coffins filled with plaster near the base of the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, draped with French flags with the inscription “French soldiers in Ukraine”. Three men were detained and set to be charged Monday over the incident.

Sources close to the case earlier told AFP that the incident was being investigated as possible interference by a foreign power in French affairs.

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2024