RUSSIA’s Foreign Ministry has denied the Soviets were in any way involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy – as the world waited for 3,500 new documents relating to the US president’s death 53 years ago to be released on to the internet.

The statement came as conspiracy theories were peddled on the internet over why the documents were still not on the US National Archives website by 11pm UK-time – hours after they were expected to be released, possibly shedding new light on the most famous political murder in world history.

However, Moscow pre-empted the release of any possible damaging material by claiming it had nothing to do with killer, the Communist sympathiser Lee Harvey Oswald, or any other plotters to kill Kennedy.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “If even here wild insinuations are hurled at Russia, that would be a shame, because it is information, and not disinformation that people want.

“I can’t even imagine how one can distort this topic to such a degree,” she reportedly said, despite no official accusations having been voiced publicly by the US government or police authorities.

Many of the documents have already been made public and historians are set to concentrate on a handful of pieces of paperwork released from classified files that could shed light on Kennedy’s death in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.

They are thought to contain statements from Jackie Kennedy and the lawyer for a mafia leader who was central to conspiracy theories about the assassination.

Fresh detail over Oswald’s links with the then Soviet Union and Cuba, and his whereabouts – with little known until now about a trip he made to Mexico City – before he shot Kennedy from the book depository overlooking Dealey Plaza.

It has been suggested Oswald was in touch with Soviet intelligence services or had received training while visiting the USSR.

There is also hope it may shed new light on theories of a second gunman on the “grassy knoll” that has long fascinated conspiracy theorists.

Historian Patrick Maney, of Boston College, who is an expert on the presidency, told PBS news: “As long as the government is withholding documents like these, it’s going to fuel suspicion that there is a smoking gun out there about the Kennedy assassination.”

By law, the once-classified documents had to be released yesterday, the 25th anniversary of the the signing of the John F Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act.

ABC News, meanwhile, claimed the delay comes down to one person, President Trump.

The archives reportedly had the files ready to go, but needed final approval.

President Trump could decide not to release some of the documents if he deemed that doing so would be harmful to the military, intelligence or foreign relations.

Attorney Mark S Zaid also tweeted that the archives had not been given a green light to release the documents by late afternoon yesterday.

The National Archives urged people to stay logged in for news.

Since 1992, it has been mandatory for all JFK assassination-related material to be housed in one collection within the archives in Washington DC.

It contains more than five million pages of assassination-related records, photographs, motion pictures, sound recordings and artifacts (approximately 2,000 cubic feet of records). Most of the records are open for research.

Almost 90 per cent of the records have been available for the public to view since the 1990s.

Each of the 3,500 documents are believed to contain hundreds of documents within them.

There was no comment on Twitter from President Trump, who gave a speech on opioid abuse, on the reason for the delay.