presidential election that swept Trump to
power because of his desire to restore normal relations with Russia.
In
an interview with U.S. filmmaker Oliver Stone dated June 19 and
published on the Kremlin website Friday, Putin also said that any
alleged Russian hackers were still not able to influence the vote's
outcome.
The Russian president reiterated that he had not and would not interfere in U.S. elections.
The
Moscow-Washington ties have long been strained by U.S. intelligence and
law enforcement findings, denied by the Kremlin, that Russia tried to
influence the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to boost
Trump's chances of winning the White House.
U.S.
intelligence and law enforcement agencies say Russia used
disinformation and other tactics to support Trump's 2016 campaign. Putin
has denied it.
"And
whichever our bloggers — I don't know who works there in the internet —
had expressed their point of view on the situation in the USA in this
or that way, this had not been able to play a decisive role. This is
nonsense," Putin said.
"But
we had sympathized with him [Trump], because he said that he wanted to
restore normal relations with Russia. What's bad in this? And of course,
we couldn't unwelcome such a position."
VOA