Mueller accuses 12 Russian government agents of hacking democratic computers during the 2016 presidential election

Twelve Russian spies were accused of conducting a major hacking campaign aimed at bribing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election – the indictment having taken place three days before Donald Trump meets Vladimir Putin. Mueller accuses agents of the main intelligence branch, a Kremlin spy agency known as GRU, to install spyware on the computers of Democratic Party staff members to monitor their work during countryside; steal embarrbading e-mails and other documents; and escape with voter information on 500,000 Americans from a state election agency.

Spies have set up fake people online to release stolen documents. They also reportedly transmitted the information to an "organization" – not named in the indictment, but that appears to be WikiLeaks – as well as to a congressional candidate, a lobbyist and a journalist. And they were communicating with someone who was "in regular contact" with Mr. Trump's campaign to offer help.

Friday's accusations underscore the magnitude of Russia's staggering attack on the most powerful electoral system. Countries in the world. And they are raising the curtain on the 21st century cyber war that has taken the US government completely unprepared.

Mueller has already charged Russian hackers with ties to the Kremlin, but Friday's charges are the first against government intelligence agents. He investigates Moscow's interference in the elections and tries to determine whether Mr Trump's campaign has been complicit with Russia.

The US President, expressing himself during a visit to Britain before the charges, accused the investigation of harming his attempts. a relationship with Mr. Putin.

"I would call it faked witch hunt," Mr. Trump said. "It really hurts our relationship with Russia, we would have a chance to have … a very good relationship with President Putin."

During the campaign, Mr. Trump publicly encouraged Russia to Hacking Ms. Clinton's e-mails and frequently referencing hacked documents to attack her opponent.

Politicians across the spectrum demanded that Trump cancel his Monday's summit with Putin in Finland – or at least confront him with allegations of piracy.

"President Trump must be ready to confront Putin by force and demonstrate that there will be a serious price to pay for his ongoing aggression," Republican Senator John McCain said in a statement. "If President Trump is not ready to hold Putin accountable, the Helsinki summit should not go ahead."

Friday's indictment exposes for the first time the details of how two Moscow-based GRU units, units 26165 and 74455, reportedly carried out these operations.

Spies began by sending spearphishing emails to members of The Clinton Campaign and other Democratic officials, says the indictment. A March 2016 e-mail, disguised as a Google security alert, prompted Campaign Chair John Podesta to enter his pbadword in a website created by the GRU. The Russians then stole more than 50,000 emails from his account.

A similar email from the following month tricked a staff member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. This simple diversion would have allowed spies to enter not only into his computer, but also into the DCCC server and into the computers of the Democratic National Committee.

Once inside, GRU agents are accused of having installed spyware called X-Agent, which allowed them to see party officials' screens and record their strikes. They stole thousands of other emails and took root in computers for confidential documents.

The spies then created a website, a Facebook page and a Twitter account called "DCLeaks" to publish the document. They also created a false identity, Guccifer 2.0, which claimed to be a Romanian hacker with "totally unrelated to the Russian government."

An anonymous group reportedly approached "Guccifer" asking for documents that would make a wedge between Mrs. Clinton and Bernie Sanders, her rival for the Democratic presidential sign, before the party's nomination convention. The Russians complied. The group seems to be Wikileaks, which has published tens of thousands of stolen documents in the summer of 2016.

Three other people, all unnamed in the Charges, also received documents from the Russians: Congress candidate, who contacted spies in search of damaging information about an opponent; a lobbyist who has obtained information about Democratic donors; and the spies, pretending to be Guccifer, allegedly communicated with someone related to Mr. Trump's badociates, saying, "Please tell me if I can help you anyway." .. it would be a great pleasure for me. "Roger Stone, a long time friend of Mr. Trump, has already acknowledged exchanging messages with Guccifer.

There is no evidence that these people are are reported

On Friday, Mr. Trump seemed indifferent to the notion of Russian piracy, suggesting that he could not do much if Mr. Putin denied it

.I do not think you'll have "Gee, I did it.I did it.You said, 'There will be no Perry Mason here,'" he said. "But I will definitely ask the question firmly."