Putin: I Don’t Who Hacked DNC, But Russia Didn’t

Russian President Vladimir Putin denied having any involvement in the July hack of the Democratic National Committee’s email server and suggested what matters is that content of the hack rather than who carried it out.

A Bloomberg journalist grilled Russian President Vladimir Putin over which candidate he favors in the USA presidential election in an interview published on Friday. Trump has accused the State Department under Clinton of approving the Russian takeover of uranium assets in the USA after investors in the deal paid $145 million to the Clinton Foundation, and in July he invited Russia to dig up thousands of documents that were deleted from Clinton’s personal e-mail server.

USA officials and cybersecurity firms have said there is evidence Russian Federation was behind the security breach that resulted in the release of thousands of emails that appeared to show the DNC favored Hillary Clinton for the presidential nomination.

The leaking of the DNC’s files, said President Putin, had been a service to the public.

In an interview with Bloomberg news agency before he met Abe, Putin indicated he would not contemplate giving up territory.

The Republican presidential hopeful also once appeared to ask Russian Federation to assist in state-level hacking of Clinton’s emails:”Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”, Trump said at once press event.

The latest chapter in the oil production freeze chatter saw Russian Federation and Saudi Arabia issuing remarks about a possible deal, but while the Saudi foreign minister said that positions were moving closer, Vladimir Putin said he would be in favor of an OPEC deal with a “leeway” for Iran which deserves to make a complete return to the market.

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Russia’s “track record” of state hacking goes back at least a decade, so Putin’s denials aren’t credible. He said that by bringing up “minor issues with the search for who did it”, there was “no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem” that was highlighted by the release of the documents. “We have never interfered, are not interfering and do not intend to interfere in domestic politics”, he said.

“Next week we are going to see it move lower”, he said of the dollar.

I also want to say that it depends on how ready the future administration is.

“In any case”, Putin said.

Obama said in August he would discuss the cyber attack with Putin if Russian Federation was responsible, but it would not “wildly” alter the two countries’ relationship.