Really? A government saying that they would ensure no "negative stories would come out", literally puppetting international institutions to pay out money - billions - for an election campaign, sent US Government agents to be embedded into the Yeltsin campaign right as he was violating every law on the books and calling in favours from the mafia and oligarchs, and very likely also used intelligence agencies to help, all of that isn't major interference?

But targeted ads are?

I have a family member affected by those "targeted ads" and can tell you this is hardly comparable to news agencies writing favorably or not about someone. Some people are seriously fucked up because of this. Just look what happened on January 6th.

For the record, I think that both are elections interference. But there's a far cry behind publishing fake news and advertising it to some demographics and fuelling IMF money into campaigns by the billions and embedding foreign advisors into a criminal election campaign.