MOSCOW (AP) — Russian state-owned television station RT says Twitter had pushed it to spend millions on advertising ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian state-owned television station RT says Twitter had pushed it to spend millions on advertising ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Twitter said on Thursday it would ban ads from RT and Sputnik, two state-sponsored Russian news outlets that the U.S. intelligence community has said tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Twitter, Google and Facebook are scheduled to testify at congressional hearings next week on Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Twitter also said this week it will disclose more information on political ads.

RT on Thursday published what it said was excerpts from Twitter's pitch made in April last year to get the TV station to spend millions of dollars on advertising, an offer that RT says it has turned down.