William Cummings

USA TODAY

Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in efforts to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, NBC News reported, citing two unnamed "senior U.S. intelligence officials."

New intelligence links Putin directly to the leaks from hacked Democratic National Committee emails, the officials told NBC News with "a high level of confidence."

A high-level intelligence source said the campaign began as a "vendetta" against Hillary Clinton, NBC News reported. The goal grew into an effort to expose corruption in U.S. politics and to undermine America's international credibility, according to NBC.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the report Thursday as "nonsense," according to Russia's TASS news agency.

"I was astonished when I saw it," Lavrov said. "I think, this is nothing but nonsense, there is not a chance that anybody could believe that."

The NBC News report comes after last week's report from The Washington Post, also citing unnamed intelligence sources, which said the CIA believed that Russia not only interfered in the election, but did so with the intention of helping Donald Trump win. Although U.S. intelligence agencies agree Russia was behind several hacks during the campaign, including that of the DNC, the CIA is thus far the only agency reported to have reached the conclusion that the efforts were explicitly meant to benefit Trump.

On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community expressing confidence that the "Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." The ODNI and FBI do not believe there is enough evidence to conclude the cyber attacks were intended to help Trump win, however.

Given Putin's authoritarian control over the Russian government, it is logical that any intervention in the U.S. election would have required the former KGB officer's approval. In the October statement, the 17 American intelligence agencies said, "We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."