Vladimir Putin has sparked controversy by suggesting Russian minorities such as Jews or Tatars could be behind meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
US intelligence services generally agree that Russians sought to interfere in the election. Last month, Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian links to the Trump campaign, charged 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities with conspiracy to defraud the US.
The Kremlin has always strongly denied it had any hand in efforts to swing the election result in favour of Trump.
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In what CNN described as a “no-holds barred interview” with NBC News’s Megyn Kelly, the Russian president repeatedly denied ordering a campaign to sabotage the election and instead sought to lay the blame on ethnic minority groups.
“Maybe they’re not even Russians,” he said. “Maybe they’re Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews, just with Russian citizenship. Even that needs to be checked. Maybe they have dual citizenship. Or maybe a green card. Maybe it was the Americans who paid them for this work. How do you know? I don’t know.”
He also said that, even if Russian citizens were found to have been involved, he “couldn’t care less” as “they do not represent the interests of the Russian state”.
His comments have sparked a furious backlash from Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt saidd: “It is deeply disturbing to see the Russian president giving new life to classic anti-Semitic stereotypes that have plagued his country for hundreds of years.”
Jews and minority groups such as Ukrainians and Muslim Tatars have faced centuries of persecution in Russia. Under the tsars, Jews faced restrictions on livelihoods and residences - and millions fled pogroms. Countless numbers were sent to the gulags under Joseph Stalin.
Other minorities fared little better, with both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union cracking down ruthlessly on other ethnic and national groups as part of a programme of Russification. Crimean Tatars were specifically targeted by Stalin in 1945, who accused them of collaborating with the Nazis.
