Russia is likely to be pleased with the result of President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, as the Trump administration ramps up efforts to counter the influence of its former Soviet enemy.
The United States has long sought to counter Russian propaganda and the Kremlin has taken steps to do so.
But now, Peskov, who spoke after meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, said the Trump team is preparing to take on the Kremlin’s propaganda machine by setting up a propaganda arm to counter disinformation in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
“The goal is to counter all the propaganda efforts of the United State and other Western powers,” Peskov told reporters after a meeting with top U.S. officials.
Peskov, a former spy chief, did not say how much money the Russian propaganda unit will have or how much it will spend.
But he said that Russia will focus on spreading its propaganda message in the U.K., France and Germany, where the U-K.
and the U, the German chancellor, are scheduled to meet in early December.
The propaganda arm would be overseen by Russian intelligence, Peskova said.PESKOVA: We’re prepared to do all this.
It’s the only way to counter what we call disinformation, to combat this kind of propaganda and to deal with it.
There are lots of possibilities.TRUMP: I don’t know about that.PESHKOV: So the plan is to create a media center.
And what do you think of that?TRUMP: No, I don�t think it�s a plan.PERSKOV: You think that the U.-K.
meeting will have any impact?TRUMP : I donít know about it.
Peshkov declined to answer further questions.
In a tweet, Trump accused the U of interfering in the election and of encouraging “fake news” in the form of “dishonest and inaccurate reporting.”
In a series of tweets Monday, Trump also questioned the legitimacy of the results and questioned whether the U S. government was behind the hacking and leaking of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
