Putin comments on Trump’s ‘connection’ to Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied media reports claiming that he has maintained contact with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Last week, a book by American journalist Bob Woodward hit the stands which alleged that the former president had secretly spoken to Putin seven times since the end of his term in office in 2021.

At a news conference following the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan on Thursday, NBC journalist Keir Simmons asked Putin whether he has had private conversations with Trump.

“This issue has been making headlines for years now. At one point, Mr Trump and Russia were accused of being connected,” Putin said. “However, after an investigation conducted in the United States, everyone, including the US Congress, concluded that it was utter nonsense and that nothing of the kind had ever happened,” he pointed out. “There were no contacts back then, and there are none now.”

Two months after Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, US intelligence officials accused Russia of interfering in the vote, hurting the Hillary Clinton campaign and aiding her Republican rival. However, a subsequent years-long investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”

In an interview with Fox News last week, Trump explained that the collusion allegations were used by his political opponents to justify Clinton’s loss. “That started off as an excuse for why she lost an election that a lot of people thought she should have won,” he said, adding that “then she got beaten everywhere, virtually.”

“Then they said, ‘Ah, it was Russia,’ they used it as an excuse, and then the fake news picked it up,” Trump said.

Moscow has previously stressed that it will work with whichever leader is chosen by the American people in the upcoming November election.

On Thursday, Putin reiterated that he’s willing to normalize relations with the US, provided that Washington is willing to respond in kind.

“Russia-US relations after the elections depend primarily on the United States. If the United States is open to building normal relations with Russia, we will do the same,” he stressed. “If not, so be it. This is up to the future administration.”