{"id":217783,"date":"2019-06-07T01:47:41","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T05:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=217783"},"modified":"2019-06-07T01:47:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T05:47:41","slug":"putin-says-russia-didnt-meddle-in-us-vote-despite-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/07\/putin-says-russia-didnt-meddle-in-us-vote-despite-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin says Russia didn’t meddle in US vote, despite evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: MOSCOW, RUSSIA – DEC 23, 2016: The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin at the annual press conference in Center of international trade (ID1974 \/ Shutterstock.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PETERSBURG,\u00a0Russia\u00a0— Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reaffirmed his staunch denial that his government meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election despite the extensive evidence to the contrary, and insisted Moscow has no intention of interfering in any future votes, either.<\/p>\n

Speaking in response to a question from The Associated Press during a meeting with chief executives of international news agencies in St. Petersburg, the Russian leader said that \u201cwe didn’t meddle, we aren’t meddling and we will not meddle in any elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin and other Russian officials have hotly denied any interference with the U.S. vote to help Donald\u00a0Trump\u00a0win the presidency, even though U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller has uncovered evidence of a Kremlin operation to interfere with the 2016 vote. He charged 12 Russian military intelligence officers with breaking into Democratic Party emails, and also indicted other Russians who used phoney social media accounts to spread divisive rhetoric and to undermine the U.S. political system.<\/p>\n

Putin insisted that \u201cwe don’t have and never had any plans to interfere in U.S. domestic politics,\u201d but added that the Russian government can’t stop private citizens from expressing their views about developments in the U.S. online.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we ban them from doing that?\u201d he said. \u201cDo you have such a ban with regard to\u00a0Russia?\u201d<\/p>\n

The president added that\u00a0Russia\u00a0had offered to agree on a set of rules regarding modern communications to President Barack Obama’s administration and then\u00a0Trump’s White House, but neither was ready to make the deal.<\/p>\n

During his meeting, Putin also warned that the U.S. reluctance to start talks on extending a key arms control pact raises the threat of an uncontrollable arms race, and said that Moscow has no plans to send troops to shore up Venezuela’s embattled leader.<\/p>\n

Asked about\u00a0Trump’s tweet this week that Moscow had informed Washington it had \u201cremoved most of their people from Venezuela,\u201d Putin said that Russian experts come and go to service Russian-made weapons bought by Caracas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe aren’t building any military bases there, we aren’t sending troops there, we have never done that,\u201d Putin said. \u201cBut we have fulfilled our contract obligations in the sphere of military-technical co-operation and we will keep doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Russian leader said the U.S. sanctions against Venezuela have hurt ordinary people, and warned Washington against using force to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n

Russia\u00a0has staunchly backed Maduro, while the U.S. and several dozen other nations have thrown their support behind opposition leader Juan Guaido and recognized him as interim president, asserting that Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate.<\/p>\n

Putin said \u201cthe crisis in Venezuela should be settled by the Venezuelan people,\u201d adding that \u201cthrough dialogue, consultations and co-operation between various political forces, the Venezuelan people themselves must decide whether Mr. Maduro should stay in power or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Russian leader said he feels \u201cabsolutely neutral\u201d about Guaido, describing him as a \u201cnice person,\u201d but charged that his leadership claim has created a precedent that could \u201clead to chaos across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet them elect U.S. presidents, British prime ministers and French presidents like that,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd where will all that lead? I would like to ask those who support it: Are you mad?\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin issued a stern warning about the danger of a new arms race.<\/p>\n

He accused the United States of shunning talks on extending the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty that is set to expire in 2021.<\/p>\n

Putin said that while\u00a0Russia\u00a0has repeatedly signalled its intention to begin discussions on extending the pact, Washington has been unresponsive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have said 100 times already that we are ready, but no one is talking to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The New START pact, signed in 2010 by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.<\/p>\n

Putin added that\u00a0Russia’s new weapons will protect its security \u201cfor a long time to come\u201d even if the pact isn’t extended, but he voiced concern about the \u201ccomplete dismantling of arms control mechanisms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin also criticized the U.S. withdrawal from another key arms pact, the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, denying Washington’s claims of Russian violations of the agreement.<\/p>\n

Citing those alleged violations, the U.S. has formally suspended its obligations under the INF that bans all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres (310 to 3,410 miles), setting the stage for the treaty to terminate later this year.\u00a0Russia, which has denied any breaches, has followed suit.<\/p>\n

While criticizing the U.S. moves, Putin said that his latest phone call with\u00a0Trump\u00a0\u201dencouraged certain optimism.\u201d He said that\u00a0Trump\u00a0shared his concern about the arms race and suggested that the money spent on new weapons would be better used for other purposes.<\/p>\n

The Russian leader noted that arms control talks should eventually involve other nuclear powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of now, the talks between us as the countries that have the most powerful nuclear arsenals are the most important, but I believe that all nuclear powers — both official and unofficial — should be brought in,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PETERSBURG,\u00a0Russia\u00a0— Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday reaffirmed his staunch denial that his government meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":205659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-gary-pruitt","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217784,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217783\/revisions\/217784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}