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TEHRAN, March 3 - Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the US to send him hard evidence that some Russians purportedly interfered in the 2016 US presidential election in favor of incumbent American President Donald Trump, mocking accusations to date as “yelling and hollering in the United States Congress.”
TEHRAN,Young Journalists Club (YJC) - “I have to see first what they’ve done. Give us materials, give us information,” the Russian president said in an interview with NBC TV aired late on Friday, according to an English voiceover of his words.
In response to a question whether the Kremlin would take action against the named individuals, President Putin said Moscow “cannot respond to that if they do not violate Russian laws.”
The Russian president further said US authorities should send Russia’s general prosecutor an official request, adding that “this has to go through official channels, not through the press.”
The broadcast came a day after Putin introduced an array of new nuclear weapons, in one of his most strongly-worded speeches in years, saying Moscow could hit almost any point in the world and evade a US-built missile shield in case of facing any aggression launched against his country.
Last month, the US Justice Department's Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the alleged Russian meddling, indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of interfering in elections in the US as part of what is called a conspiracy to support Trump and disparage Hillary Clinton.
In late 2016, Washington alleged that Russia had influenced the US presidential election in November that year to help Trump get elected, an allegation that Russia strongly denied. Back then, the outgoing administration of President Barack Obama threatened that the United States would respond to the alleged Russian meddling “at the time and place" of its choosing.
In November 2017, Putin strongly rejected as “fantasies” claims that Moscow interfered in the election in favor of Trump. The Russian president also in December renewed Russia’s rejection of the same accusations, saying the claims were nothing more than “espionage mania.”
There are currently multiple investigations by US security agencies into the case.
Despite lack of significant proof, the accusations of Moscow’s alleged tampering with the election persist as a hot topic in Washington, contributing largely to the worst deterioration in Russian-American ties since the Cold War.
Trump himself has repeatedly told Americans that the allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia were not true. In his latest reaction to the allegation, Trump said on February 16, shortly after the publication of Mueller’s report, that “the results of the election were not impacted.”
“The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!” he added.
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