Vladimir Putin has again denied Russian meddling in the US elections, blaming allegations that Moscow had sought to influence the vote on an internal political battle in the US.
“Read my lips – no,” the Russian president answered, when asked whether Russia had tried to influence the vote. He emphasised the denial by saying “no” in English.
The Russia scandal continues to hang over the Trump administration: US intelligence agencies are convinced Russia mounted a campaign to help Donald Trump get elected, but a House of Representatives inquiry into the allegations has become mired in political infighting.
The US president has denied those claims, as well as unverified claims, made in a dossier compiled by the former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, that Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russian intelligence.
Putin blamed the accusations on US politics, and warned that it was dangerous to pit Washington against Moscow. “Do we want to completely destroy our diplomatic relations, to bring the situation to how it was in the 1960s, with the Cuban missile crisis?” Putin asked, during an Arctic forum in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk.
Russian officials made little secret of their preference for Trump during the electoral campaign, partly due to a visceral dislike of Hillary Clinton and partly due to Trump’s repeated claims that he wanted to do deals with Russia and admired Putin.
But after an initial flurry of excitement over the election results, there has been something of a reassessment. Michael Flynn was forced to resign from his post as national security adviser after lying about his extensive contacts with the Russian ambassador in Washington, and the Russia issue has now become so toxic that there is little space to get any diplomacy done.
Putin described the scandal over various contacts between the Trump team and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak as “nonsense”, saying he was only doing his job. “What is the ambassador there for? He’s there to speak to people, to maintain contacts with the political elite, with businessmen, with members of the House and the Senate, with administration officials.”
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, when asked recently by a Russian official who was planning a trip to the US whom it would be advisable to meet with while there, joked that “the main thing is not to meet with Kislyak”, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation.
The open celebration of Trump’s victory also led to increased suspicion over Russia’s role in the election.
“This was a mistake, of course. If you like Trump, you should try to keep quiet when he’s elected and not have a carnival in Moscow,” said the political analyst and former Kremlin consultant Gleb Pavlovsky. “Though, on the other hand, the hysteria about Russia in the US has surprised me as well.”
Russian officials are now biding their time until the scandal dies down. “There’s a temporary psychosis in the US, but they’ll calm down,” said one source close to the Kremlin.
As the honeymoon period between Russia and Trump soured, state television bosses were told to tone down their coverage of the US president, and almost overnight Trump disappeared from screens, though in recent weeks news about the US president has made a measured comeback.
While the hagiographic coverage of Trump is over, there is not negative coverage of the US president in the way there was of Barack Obama and his administration. There has been almost no coverage of the various Washington hearings about Russian meddling.
The US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who as CEO of ExxonMobil did a number of deals in Russia, is due in Moscow in the coming weeks, but the world awaits the first meeting of Trump and Putin in person. That seems likely to happen at the G20 summit in Hamburg in July, but there is a possibility it could happen at an Arctic summit in Finland in May. Putin indicated he would be happy to travel to the summit, but any meeting would depend on Trump agreeing.
Trump’s stated desire to do deals with Putin has alarmed many in European capitals, but analysts in Moscow have little optimism that the pair could form a grand bargain.
“I think there’ll be a lot of noise but no result. I can’t understand what they have to offer each other,” Pavlovsky said.
