Tillerson to Russia: We don’t trust you

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has warned the Kremlin that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election was a serious issue that has strained relations between the two superpowers, he said Monday.

Tillerson said he discussed the interference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a summit in the Philippines to “help them understand how serious this incident had been and how seriously it damaged the relationship” with the US.

But Tillerson said the damage need not be permanent, and that the two countries should work to regain one another’s trust.

“The fact that we want to work with them on areas that are of serious national security interest to us, and at the same time having this extraordinary issue of mistrust that divides us, that is just what we in the diplomatic part of our relationship are required to do,” Tillerson said.

Tillerson’s comments contradicted President Trump’s repeated contention that Russia’s interference is “fake news” and “a hoax” perpetrated by Democrats frustrated over their loss.

Tillerson said Russia had also expressed some willingness to resume talks about the crisis in Ukraine, where a 2015 cease-fire between Kiev’s forces and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country is regularly violated.

Meanwhile, Russian spies have flooded the US to infiltrate government, businesses and other insti- tutions as President Vladimir Putin has dramatically expanded intelligence operations on US soil, a report said Monday.

“There are more Russian operatives, declared and undeclared, in the United States now than at any other time in the past fifteen years,” a senior US official told The New Yorker.