Putin’s criticism in the Bloomberg interview of negative campaigning in USA elections – “They attack each other and in some cases I wouldn’t like us to follow their example” – is as shallow as Clinton’s famous mockery of Putin’s return to the presidency after four years as prime minister as evidence of a Russian democracy deficit.
Advertisement
“We’re not talking about some exchange or some sale”, the Russian president told Bloomberg News in an interview on Thursday and posted on the news agency’s website. A spate of other recent hacks, mostly targeting Democratic Party organizations but also state electoral systems, have raised alarms among US intelligence officials that Moscow is trying to influence the American elections.
The hacked emails, released by activist group WikiLeaks in July, appeared to show favoritism within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and prompted the resignation of the body’s chairwoman.
In the interview with Bloomberg, the Russian leader also said the two leading presidential candidates are using “shock tactics” in their election campaigns. Putin is set to find a solution to the Kuril Islands’ issue.
Both Trump and Clinton have accused the other of having secret ties to the country, and Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned following reports questioning his ties to a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine.
Bloomberg also spoke with a “cybersecurity expert” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who said that Russia’s “track record” doesn’t lend much credibility to Putin’s denial.
Putin seemed to be congratulating the hackers for the transparency that they created by opening private DNC information to the American public and the rest of the civilized world. That was followed up with a leak of another dossier, this time belonging to Hillary Clinton, leaked by unknown hackers. The resulting attacks, he said, are part of the US political culture.
During the meeting, their first ever, Putin congratulated May on becoming the British prime minister, and said he hopes the two countries can take bilateral relations to a higher level.
“No meeting in recent years has tested the ability of individual leaders like the December summit will“, Japans Foreign Ministry representative said as quoted by the Nikkei news outlet.
“They are both intelligent people”, Putin said. Putin said. “That’s complete nonsense”.
Advertisement
“The issue is historically closed, there can be no return to the previous state of affairs”.
