Russian officials have pushed back over allegations that hackers are already interfering with European elections in a bid to have Moscow-friendly candidates elected.

It was one of the biggest controversies shadowing the new Trump administration, and now European officials said they were already under attack in the lead-up to their elections.

French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron said his campaign had been targeted and he has called on the European Union to take a hard line on any interference.

But in Moscow, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Minister, scoffed at claims Russia would sabotage European elections.

"Not only with Australia, Netherlands, France, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Italy, etc etc," she said, rattling off countries where concern has been raised about Russian hacking.

"Guys, be realistic. Don't follow this mainstream."

Andrey Kortunov, the director of the Russian International Affairs Council, ridiculed suggestions Russia was trying to destabilise Europe.

"Let me state very bluntly, if indeed NATO or the EU can be undermined by Russia, it tells you volumes more about NATO or the European Union," he said during an interview at the headquarters of his Moscow-based thinktank.

'Not yet a cyberwar — but close'

Andrei Soldatov said it was not yet a cyberwar.

Andrei Soldatov, author of The Red Web, said the Kremlin was using "informal actors" to do its hacking.

"They're not part of any bureaucracy, it's much more informal," he said.

"It's about people who are close to the administration, they might have direct access to influential people and they might be given some direct orders but it would not be recorded anywhere in some sort of paper.

While he said it was too early to predict if European elections would be hit hard, he warned of another more dangerous threat if several elements combined in a perfect storm of chaos.

"What we might see next year, we might get a real attack on critical infrastructure, then we'll see a fake news situation to define how we perceive this attack on the critical infrastructure," Mr Soldatov said.

"And that might be really, really big, I think it will be much more serious than what we've seen before."

'Preaching to the choir'

There are fake news sites across the world, but some of Russia's main media organisations are accused of being among the worst.

Alexey Kovalev is a journalist at the English-language Moscow Times and the founder of a website called "Noodle Remover", which is dedicated to analysing and combating fake news stories.

He said his experience while living in London and seeing how Russian media reported on the city made him determined to try to debunk some of the false stories.

"Who I'm hoping to reach are people who are watching Russian national television and believing everything it says, but realistically, I'm preaching to the choir," he said.

'Information warfare is warfare'

The head of the Russia program at Chatham House in London, James Nixey, said Russian propaganda had become more professionalised, more institutionalised and more overarching.

"Which is not to say it's all you get fed. Russia is not North Korea.

"You can access the web and go onto almost all the world's media, however, a vast majority of Russians get their news from state-run television, and if you do that you're only going to get what the Kremlin wants to feed you."

He said it had been a deliberate tactic by the Kremlin, which had steadily increased funded believing it could shift the middle ground of debate towards the Russia point of view.

"The Kremlin has a propaganda unit, it has an information unit," Mr Nixey said.

"They believe that information warfare is warfare. It's just another tool in the tool box."

New player not keen on criticising Putin

It is not only the state sponsored media delivering a very pro-Putin view of the world.

Tsargrad TV is the newest entrant on the market — owned by an Oligarch and declaring itself more patriot than even state TV.

Andrei Afanasyev, nightly talk show host, said he had not done any negative stories on Mr Putin.

"It's a channel covering all the global news from the point of view of Russia's patriot majority," explained Andrei Afanasyev, the host of a nightly talk show.

The studio looks out over the Kremlin — the only one in Moscow, according to Mr Afanasyev, with that kind of view.

They have been covering Donald Trump extensively and Mr Afanasyev admitted he had not done any stories that were critical of Mr Putin.

"Negative about President Putin? I wouldn't say so because he hasn't done anything that can be criticised in the view of the traditional patriots," he said.