Russian embassy rebuffs Pompeo's Moscow intervention accusation

WASHINGTON - The Russian embassy in the United States on Thursday rejected the accusations made by US official Mike Pompeo that Russia sought to intervene in Western elections to undermine their democracy.

Pompeo, current head of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been nominated secretary of state.

Earlier in his nomination confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Pompeo said he took "a back seat to no one" with his views of the threat to Washington's democracy from Moscow.

He also vowed to continue "to take real actions to push back, to reset the deterrence relationship with respect to Russia."

In response, the Russian embassy said in a statement that Pompeo's rhetoric was once again "unfounded accusations of Russia's meddling in US electoral processes", earlier made by US legislators.

"Russia does not engage in regime changes, meddling in domestic affairs of other states or masterminding staged 'revolutions.' The United States, however, has mastered these techniques, as they have quite an experience in this area," the embassy said.

There are continuing allegations that Russia intervened in the 2016 US presidential campaign, which led to Donald Trump's victory. Both the Kremlin and the US president deny the accusations, which Trump calls a political "witch hunt" engineered by the Democratic Party.