The Kremlin on Wednesday denied Moscow was interfering in the US election campaign after President Barack Obama refused to rule out that Russia could be trying to sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has blamed Russia for an embarrassing leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee, propelling the Kremlin to the heart of American political debate as tensions between Moscow and Washington linger months before the historic vote.
Trump denied allegations of ties with Moscow on Wednesday, telling voters in Florida that he had “nothing to do with Russia.”
“I said (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin has much better leadership qualities than (US President Barack) Obama, but who doesn’t know that?” he said.
Trump’s statement came after the Kremlin reiterated that it was not meddling in US internal affairs.
“President Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has never interfered and does not interfere in internal affairs, especially in the electoral processes of other countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov had earlier dismissed as “absurd” claims that Russia was involved in the hacking of emails that were released by WikiLeaks.
“Moscow has carefully avoided any actions, any words that could be interpreted as direct or indirect influence on the electoral process,” Peskov said.
“If you talk about some suspicions regarding our country, then you need at the very least to be precise and concrete,” he added.
Source: AFP
