US-Russia Summit: Putin denies meddling in US elections, holding compromising material against Trump

Putin and Trump during Helsinki bilateral meet/ Image:ANI

New Delhi: Following the historic talks with US President Donald Trump, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin scoffed at a suggestion that Moscow had any compromising material on Donald Trump or that it interfered with the US elections in 2016. He strongly denied any sort of interference with US Presidential elections. During a press conference alongside the meet between the two powerful leaders when Vladimir Putin was asked about allegations of Russia intervening in 2016 election in the United States, he firmly denied it. He said: “Where did you get this idea that President Trump trusts me or I trust him? He defends the interest of the United States of America & I do defend the interest of Russian Federation.”

Where did you get this idea that President Trump trusts me or I trust him? He defends the interest of the United States of America & I do defend the interest of Russian Federation: Vladimir Putin on allegations of Russia intervening in 2016 election in the United States pic.twitter.com/lojyGjPegs

— ANI (@ANI) July 16, 2018

As per reports, Putin said that he wanted Trump to win US Presidential elections to normalise ties between the two countries. "It's hard to imagine greater nonsense, please get this rubbish out of your heads " Putin told a news conference alongside the US president after several hours of talks during the two leaders' first summit, AFP reported. Trump's critics in US have accused the US president of cosying up to Putin, suggesting the Russian leader may have some compromising material on him. Putin said that when Trump came to Moscow as a businessman, the former did not even know he was in Moscow. Denying that Russia spied on them Putin said that more than 500 US businessmen of the highest rank came for the Saint Petersburg economic forum and he doesn't even remember their last names." The billionaire businessman visited Russia several times before he was elected US president in 2016 which had given rise to speculations that Russia has something that was very discomforting about Trump. Trump blamed bad relations between Moscow and Washington on the US investigation into alleged Russian election meddling. Both the US and Moscow Kremlin leaders have furiously denied Trump's campaign colluded with Russia. Putin and Trump both hailed the meeting as very successful.

We had a good conversation with Pres. Trump & I hope we start to understand each other better and I'm grateful to Donald for it. Clearly, there are some challenges left, we were not able to clear all the backlog, but I think we made the first important step: Vladimir Putin pic.twitter.com/4hAwZUWo41

— ANI (@ANI) July 16, 2018