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Vladimir Putin denies interfering in US election amid renewed spy allegations

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who made the claims.  - Victoria Jones/PA Wire
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who made the claims. - Victoria Jones/PA Wire

  Vladimir Putin has denied interfering in the US election amid renewed allegations of Russian involvement in the 2016 poll.  

“Watch my lips – No,” Mr Putin said on Thursday when asked about allegations that the Kremlin ran an influence campaign to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. 

 The comments came on the same day the US Senate’s Intelligence Committee began hearings into the alleged election interference.  

Mr Putin pointed to the fallout of scandal in Washington as "proof" that Russia had not interfered in the election, saying that it had made it impossible to plan a meeting with Mr Trump.   

"The President is barred from implementing his agenda on health-care or international affairs, relations with Russia and we will wait till things stabilise," he told CNBC during a forum on Arctic development in the northern port town of Arkhangelsk.    

Vladimir Putin (R) with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto during the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk - Credit: SERGEI KARPUKHIN/AFP
Vladimir Putin (R) with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto during the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk Credit: SERGEI KARPUKHIN/AFP

"At a certain point of time it will come to a close and we will decide when and where the meeting is held," he added.   

Earlier on Thursday the Russian foreign ministry hit out at claims one of its diplomats had been identified as a spy with a key role in the alleged influence campaign.  

Mikhail Kalugin, the former head the former head of the economic section at the Russian embassy in Washington, was first accused of being a Russian spy by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, in a dossier on alleged links between the Kremlin and Mr Trump’s electoral campaign that was made public in January. 

The BBC claimed on Wednesday that US intelligence agencies have now confirmed that Mr Kalugin is a member of the SVR or GRU, Russia’s main overseas intelligence branches.   

The claim is significant because none of the allegations in Mr Steele’s 35-page dossier have yet been verified.   

The Senate Intelligence Committee may call Mr Steele to testify about his claims at their hearings into the affair. 

Maria Zakhrova, a spokeswoman for the foreign ministry, said Mr Kalugin was doing an “ordinary” diplomatic job and accused the BBC of running a “non-story.”  

“We immediately flatly denied that he had anything to do with the Russian special services when these claims first appeared,” she said on Thursday.   

Mr Kalugin, who was the head of the economic section at the embassy for six years before returning to Moscow in August 2016, publicly denied the allegations when they first emerged in January.   

Mr Steele, who misspelt the diplomat’s surname as “Kulagin,” wrote in the dossier that he was recalled to Moscow suddenly because his deep involvement in the electoral influence campaign left him exposed.

The BBC’s Paul Wood wrote in an article published on Wednesday that US officials have confirmed that claim.   

He quoted sources saying one reason for believing Mr Kalugin was a spy partly because, unlike a real diplomat, he never met with US counterparts in Washington.   

Ms Zakharova said Mr Kalugin left Washington when his contract ran out, and said he had in fact regularly met with counterparts at the State Department, Treasury, and other departments as part of his work promoting bilateral trade ties.   

“Once again: neither he nor any diplomatic representative of Russia in the United States had anything to do with the presidential campaign.”   

“We think it is time this theme was dropped. This is a nonsense story, and in fact what the BBC put out was not a story at all,” she said.