Former Kremlin insider: Putin ‘believes’ he helped get Trump elected

A former Kremlin insider has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he helped President Trump get elected, reports Newsweek.

Gleb Pavlovsky, who met Putin in 1998, revealed the insight during a PBS/Frontline interview where he was asked about the Russian leader’s role in the 2016 U.S. election.

Pavlovsky indicated it was unlikely that Putin deliberately set out to interfere, saying in translated Russian, “Putin would not throw too many resources, throw too much strength at this questionable game where he does not see an opportunity of winning. He has not thought that American system was especially vulnerable.”

But Pavlovsky also argued that Putin did not stop hackers’ efforts to help Trump.

“After November, after Trump was elected, the situation changed,” he continued. “Now Putin understands, or he believed at least, that he was strong. I don’t know who believed in America that Putin elected Trump, but Putin believed that. Putin believed that, and that has become a political factor.”

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While the Russian leader has acknowledged the work of hackers in his country, he has denied meddling in the U.S. election himself on multiple occasions.

However, the Washington Post reported in June that “the CIA had obtained intelligence from sources inside the Russian government by early August that captured the Russian leader’s specific instructions to subordinates on the operation’s objectives: disparage and seek to defeat the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton while helping to deliver the White House to Trump.”

The Trump administration, meanwhile, continues to be dogged by special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation which handed down its first indictments earlier this week.

President Trump has denied any collusion, calling the controversy “fake news.”