Russian president Vladimir Putin Friday disputed claims that his government was behind the recent hack into the Democratic National Committee’s computer systems, but at the same time appeared to condone the subsequent leak of information from the breach, suggesting that it could potentially be helpful to the American public.
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The Russian president’s interview with Bloomberg came just two days before world leaders, including Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama, arrive in China for the Group of 20 meeting.
The Russian government has been accused of trying to interfere in the upcoming US elections, and a letter from Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid seen by the New York Times asks the FBI to investigate possible links to Donald Trump’s campaign.
“But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russian Federation has never done this”, he said.
But the rest of Vladimir Putin’s new interview seems to send a different message.
“Each of us looks at this problem through the prism of their national interests but we all agree on one thing – we need to solve the problem”, Putin said. And he repeated his earlier, generalized criticisms of anti-Russia rhetoric from USA candidates, calling them “shortsighted”.
Since the DNC hack, congressional staffers, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation generals, Washington think tanks, top news outlets and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have also been subjected to alleged intrusions.
While U.S. officials do not believe that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is directly working with the Russian government, they do suspect that he is being fed intel by the Russian community, whether he knows it or not.
“That’s why we never intervened, don’t intervene and try not to intervene in domestic political processes” in the U.S.
The latest chapter in the oil production freeze chatter saw Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia issuing remarks about a possible deal, but while the Saudi foreign minister said that positions were moving closer, Vladimir Putin said he would be in favor of an OPEC deal with a “leeway” for Iran which deserves to make a complete return to the market.
“I don’t think they’re setting the best example”, Putin said.
On the same show Sunday, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said of Clinton’s campaign that “when you ask them a question about them, it takes them about 10 words to get to Donald Trump’s name”.
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“At any rate, we definitely don’t do this at a state level”, he said.
