> U.S. controlled whistleblower on doping, Putin claims,

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin accused U.S. agencies of manipulating evidence from the main whistleblower on doping at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Putin said Thursday that former Moscow anti-doping laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov — who is under witness protection after fleeing to the United States last year — is “under the control” of the U.S. agencies, including the FBI.

Rodchenkov being in the United States “is not a positive for us, it’s a negative. It means he’s under the control of American special services,” Putin said. “What are they doing with him there? Are they giving him some kind of substances so that he says what’s required?”

Putin added that Rodchenkov should never have been appointed to run Moscow’s antidoping laboratory.

“It was a mistake on the part of those who did it, and I know who did it,” he said.

Testimony from Rodchenkov played a key role in International Olympic Committee investigations that led last week to Russian athletes being required to compete under a neutral flag at the Pyeongchang Games in South Korea.

Rodchenkov said he was ordered by the sports ministry to oversee steroid use by Russian athletes in many sports, and to cover up their doping by falsifying test results and swapping dirty samples for clean ones.

The IOC’s decision to trust Rodchenkov’s evidence is “nonsense,” Putin said, portraying the scientist as mentally unstable and referring repeatedly to Russian criminal investigations against him.

The Russian government has denied it had any involvement in doping. Putin reiterated claims that Russian doping scandals are an attempt to smear the government as he runs for re-election in March.