Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has described attacks by US and UK media on Russia and its president as “loosely made up lies,” but said that Moscow was prepared to work with the West despite this “pinching and nibbling.”
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, told reporters Friday
that the latest examples of such attacks were requests to the
presidential press service from a London newspaper and a US media
outlet about the president’s alleged business connections. Peskov
did not identify the media outlets by name, but described them as
“respectful.”
According to Peskov, the requests concerned alleged ties between
Vladimir Putin and businessman Gennadiy Timchenko, a co-owner of
major oil trading company Gunvor.
The press secretary drew reporters’ attention to the fact that
the authors of the requests directly stated in them that they
needed direct answers and would not accept general replies. They
also said that if they receive no answer or if the answers were
too general, in their view, they would consider this a refusal to
comment.
“I was disturbed by their ultimatum-like tone and by their
style that was more appropriate for an interrogation,”
Peskov said.
He also noted that the letters were worded so similarly that it
raised suspicions of a coordinated campaign.
Peskov then said that all allegations about Putin’s cooperation
with Gunvor and its co-owner were false. “All this
information completely does not correspond to reality,” he
said.
He added that the release of such a report would badly damage the
reputation of the media outlets involved.“This slander has
been made up very loosely,” he said. “We cannot treat it
seriously.”
READ MORE: Gunvor dismisses US money-laundering
probe ‘rumor’
However, the Kremlin spokesman told reporters that the Russian
authorities had no intention of seeking who was behind this media
assault.
Peskov told reporters that it was a curious fact that the
requests containing completely false allegations arrived at the
moment when Russia and the West were attempting to restore
dialogue, despite remaining contradictions.
He stressed that, despite these attacks, Russia was ready to
maintain a dialogue with its foreign partners.
Source Article from http://rt.com/politics/261217-peskov-western-media-attacks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
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