The US says that members of the Iranian and Russian governments worked to sow division during the 2024 elections.
The United States has announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russia and Iran, citing alleged efforts to interfere in its 2024 elections.
In a statement on Tuesday, the US Treasury Department said a branch of Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU) and a branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had been working to stoke internal tensions.
“The governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Bradley Smith, acting under secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement.
“The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy.”
President-elect Donald Trump ultimately emerged victorious in the November presidential election. His right-wing party, the Republicans, also gained control of the House and Senate, which together make up the US Congress.
The Treasury Department statement alleges that the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) subsidized the creation of misleading images and helped spread “baseless allegations about a 2024 vice presidential candidate” without providing further details.
Allegations of election meddling by countries like Russia have been a political flashpoint for years, though critics say their impact has been overstated.
Iranian and Russian officials have yet to respond to Tuesday’s allegations, but have previously denied similar ones.
“Today’s sanctions build on numerous previous actions by the US government that have disrupted Iran’s efforts to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and Russia’s global malign influence campaigns and illicit cyber activities,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. in a press release on Tuesday.
The statement said CGE and its director, Valery Mikhaylovich Korovin, had been designated for sanctions along with the Cognitive Design Production Center (CPDC), which it says is a branch of the IRGC.
Such sanctions would freeze any US-based assets the groups and individuals may have, and they prevent US-based entities from doing business with them.
