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President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that suggestions that the Russian state was linked to high-profile ransomware attacks in the United States were absurd and an attempt to stir up trouble ahead of his summit this month with US President Joe Biden.
A hack into the facilities of Brazilian meat packer JBS in the United States, reported this week, is the third such ransomware hack in the country since Biden took office in January.
JBS told the White House it came from a criminal organization likely based in Russia.
The White House said on Wednesday that Biden, who is due to meet with Putin in Geneva on June 16, is expected to discuss the hacking attacks with the Russian leader to see what Moscow can do to prevent such cyberattacks.
US officials have referred to criminal gangs based in Eastern Europe or Russia as the likely culprits. But Kremlin critics have pointed the finger at the Russian state itself, saying it needs to know about the attacks and maybe even lead them.
Putin, speaking on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, told Russia’s First State Television Channel that the idea of Russian state involvement was absurd.
“It’s just nonsense, it’s funny,” Putin said. “It is absurd to accuse Russia of this.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 4, 2021. Sputnik / Vladimir Smirnov / Kremlin via REUTERS
He said he was encouraged, however, by what he said was the efforts of some people in the United States to question the substance of these claims and try to figure out what is really going on.
“Thank goodness there are common sense people who (to themselves) ask this question and ask it of those who are trying to provoke a new conflict before we meet Biden,” Putin said.
Praising Biden as a seasoned politician, Putin said he expects the Geneva summit to take place in a positive atmosphere, but does not anticipate any breakthroughs.
The meeting would focus more on trying to chart a course to restore strained US-Russian relations with everything from Russia’s imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny in Ukraine to Syria, he said.
Earlier on Friday, Putin told the same economic forum that the United States is openly trying to curb Russian development and accused Washington of using the dollar as a tool for economic and political competition.
“We have no disagreement with the United States. They only have one point of disagreement – they want to slow down our development, they are talking about it publicly,” Putin told the forum.
“Everything else flows from that position,” he said.
Putin also questioned what he said was the harshness with which US authorities had treated some people detained in the January storming of Capitol Hill by supporters of Donald Trump.
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