Putin denies knowledge of a plan for Us-kremlin back channels

VLADIMIR PUTIN denied any knowledge of alleged proposals by a member of Donald Trump’s team to set up a secret communication channel with the Kremlin.

In an interview with NBC, Mr Putin said he had “no knowledge” of the proposal allegedly made by Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law, in a meeting with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, and he accused US media of fabricating the scandal as a “weapon of war” against Mr Trump.

“I don’t know about this proposal. No proposal like that came to me,” Mr Putin said. “There weren’t even any reports. There’s nothing to even talk about. For me this is amazing. You created a sensation out of the nothing and you turned it into a weapon of war against the current president.

“You people are so creative over there. Good job, your lives must be boring,” he added.

The Associated Press reported allegations last month that Mr Kushner used his December meeting with Mr Kislyak to suggest using Russian diplomatic facilities to open a secure communication line between team Trump and the Kremlin.

Mr Putin last night poured scorn on that and other elements of the Russian influence scandal engulfing Washington. Challenged over allegations Russia was involved in the hacking and leaking of emails from the Democratic National Convention ahead of the November 2016 presidential vote, he provocatively compared the hacking to the assassination of President John F Kennedy, suggesting that the Central Intelligence Agency was behind them both. “Hackers can be anywhere,” Mr Putin told NBC’S Megyn Kelly. “They can be in Russia, in Asia… even in America, Latin America.

“They can even be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very skilfully and professionally shifted the blame, as we say, on to Russia,” he added.