Putin backs Trump in Lavrov row
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to give a transcript of White House talks between his foreign minister and Donald Trump to Congress to prove that the US president didn’t give away secrets.
“We’re ready to provide a record of Lavrov’s discussions with Trump” to the US Congress to prove that no secrets were disclosed “if the American administration would like that, of course,” Putin told reporters Wednesday in Sochi at talks with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hasn’t “shared any secrets with me or with representatives of Russian special services” following last week’s meeting in the Oval Office, Putin said with a smile. In a series of tweets Tuesday morning, Trump defended sharing information about Islamic State threats to airline safety with Russian officials during the meeting. National Security Adviser HR McMaster said the president’s disclosures, first reported by the Washington Post, were “wholly appropriate.” The Post reported that US officials were concerned that Trump had disclosed highly sensitive information from an ally that contained enough details to possibly enable the Russians to draw a fuller picture of the source. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the information came from Israel. Putin said the controversy was a sign of “political schizophrenia” in the US that was intended to incite “anti-Russian sentiment.”
Those using anti-Russian slogans to destabilise the US political situation “either don’t understand that they are harming their own country, which means they are just dumb, or they understand everything and then they are dangerous and unscrupulous people,” he said.