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Don’t Sweat U.S. Presidential Vote, Russia Says It’s on the Case

Don’t Sweat U.S. Presidential Vote, Russia Says It’s on the Case

(Bloomberg) -- With Donald Trump facing the threat of impeachment and a field of Democratic contenders that’s still larger than a soccer team, the contest for the 2020 presidential elections remains wildly unpredictable for U.S. voters. But help from Russia may be at hand.

“We will resolve the problem, don’t worry,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov joked at a Paris peace forum on Tuesday, prompting laughter from the audience, after the moderator had asked him how Moscow was getting ready for the elections that are now less than a year away.

Don’t Sweat U.S. Presidential Vote, Russia Says It’s on the Case

While Lavrov was clearly trolling critics who’ve accused the Kremlin of meddling, Russian intervention on the winning side would repeat a feat achieved in 2016, according to U.S. intelligence agencies. They concluded that Russia was behind hacking attacks aimed at damaging the then Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton and boosting Trump’s chances of winning the presidency.

The Kremlin rejects those allegations, though Russian President Vladimir Putin said at last year’s Helsinki summit with the U.S. president that he’d wanted Trump to win. Trump has repeatedly denied any Russian collusion and denounced Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s lengthy inquiry into the subject as a witch hunt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin

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