MOSCOW. Sept 12 (Interfax) - The Russian Foreign Ministry sees the string of media reports on former Kremlin official Oleg Smolenkov, who supposedly turned out to be a U.S. spy, as an element of the upcoming presidential election campaign in the United States, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
"This is classic propaganda. First an aim is set, and then information is adjusted to match it. So what's the aim? There can be no doubt that it's related to domestic politics - after all, the election campaign in the U.S. has started," Zakharova said at a news briefing on Thursday.