On Monday the Kremlin said the United States was “crudely” trying to recruit Russian nationals to act as its agents. Reuters reports Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked during a conference call to comment on a report in the New York Times which said the F.B.I. and U.S. Justice Department had tried unsuccessfully to recruit Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska as an informer between 2014 and 2016.