MOSCOW, July 20 (Reuters) - Russia said the United States had formally asked Moscow about election hacking one week before last year's U.S. presidential vote and that it replied the next day, RIA news agency cited Russia's special envoy on cyber security as saying on Thursday.

"We supplied them with a preliminary response the following day. In January when (former President Barack) Obama was still in office, before the inauguration (of Donald Trump), we gave a detailed answer", Andrey Krutskikh said, according to RIA.

(writing by Denis Pinchuk, editing by Vladimir Soldatkin) ((denis.pinchuk@thomsonreuters.com; +74957751242;))