The United States on December 31 imposed sanctions on entities in Iran and Russia that it accused of attempting to “stoke socio-political tensions” through disinformation campaigns during the 2024 U.S. elections.
The U.S. Treasury Department said its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on a subsidiary of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and an organization affiliated with the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
“As affiliates of the IRGC and GRU, these actors aimed to stoke socio-political tensions and influence the U.S. electorate during the 2024 U.S. election,” the Treasury Department said in a news release.
The governments of Iran and Russia have targeted the U.S. election processes and institutions and have sought to divide Americans through targeted disinformation campaigns, said acting Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith.
“The United States will remain vigilant against adversaries who would undermine our democracy,” Smith said in the news release.
The Russian Embassy in Washington denied the accusations.
"Russia has not and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States," an embassy spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters.
"As President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed, we respect the will of the American people. All insinuations about 'Russian machinations' are malicious slander, invented for use in the internal political struggles in the United States," the spokesperson added.
Former President Donald Trump of the Republican party defeated Democratic party candidate Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump is to be inaugurated on January 20.
The Treasury Department’s announcement named Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of the IRGC, for allegedly planning influence operations since at least 2023.
SEE ALSO: Russia, China, Iran Intent On 'Fanning Divisive Narratives' In U.S. Vote, Officials SayIt also singled out Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise (CGE) as the newly sanctioned Russian entity, saying it circulated disinformation about candidates and directed and subsidized the creation of deep fakes.
CGE also manipulated a video to produce "baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate," the department said. It did not specify which candidate was targeted.
The center used generative AI tools to create disinformation distributed across a network of websites that were designed to look like legitimate news outlets, the department said.
It accused the GRU of funding the CGE and a network of U.S.-based facilitators in order to build and maintain its AI-support server and maintain the network of websites.
CGE director Valery Korovin was also designated for sanctions in the announcement on December 31.
The latest action builds on sanctions previously imposed on the IRGC, GRU, and other proxy groups. The sanctions freeze any assets the entities hold in U.S. jurisdiction and generally bar Americans from dealing with them.
Earlier this year, the U.S. government said that Iranian authorities sought to stoke discord and undermine confidence in U.S. democratic institutions using “social engineering and other efforts to gain access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both parties.”
The Treasury Department announced a round of sanctions against an Iranian national and employees of an Iranian cybersecurity company following that disclosure.