Hillary Clinton’s campaign has blamed Russia for an embarrassing leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee, propelling the Kremlin to the heart of American political debate as tensions between Moscow and Washington linger months before the historic vote.
Trump denied allegations of ties with Moscow on Wednesday, telling voters in Florida that he had “nothing to do with Russia.”
“I said (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin has much better leadership qualities than (US President Barack) Obama, but who doesn’t know that?” he said.
Trump’s statement came after the Kremlin reiterated that it was not meddling in US internal affairs.
“President Putin has repeatedly said that Russia has never interfered and does not interfere in internal affairs, especially in the electoral processes of other countries,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov had earlier dismissed as “absurd” claims that Russia was involved in the hacking of emails that were released by WikiLeaks.
“Moscow has carefully avoided any actions, any words that could be interpreted as direct or indirect influence on the electoral process,” Peskov said.
“If you talk about some suspicions regarding our country, then you need at the very least to be precise and concrete,” he added.
Trump ‘a very striking man’
In an interview with NBC News set to air on Wednesday, Obama said that “anything was possible” following suggestions that Russia could have been behind the hack.
Obama told NBC he could not speak about the precise motive for the hack or subsequent leak but was aware of Trump’s comments about the Russian leader.
“What we do know is that the Russians hack our systems. Not just government systems, but private systems,” Obama said.
Russian political analysts say that the Kremlin has always preferred working with Republican politicians.
“The Kremlin has traditionally considered that a Republican administration is more convenient because it is more pragmatic,” independent analyst Nikolai Petrov told AFP.
The Republican candidate has often said he believes he would “get on” with Putin and on Wednesday wrote on Twitter that the Kremlin strongman had called him a “genius.”
In December last year, Putin praised Trump as “a very striking man, unquestionably talented”.
Trump on Wednesday said he had never met Putin but cast doubt over accusations that Moscow was behind the hack.
“If it is Russia, nobody knows,” he said. “It’s probably China, or it could be somebody sitting in his bed. But it shows how weak we are. It shows how disrespected we are.”
‘Easier to negotiate with’
Although the Kremlin has more experience working with Clinton, who served as US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and was US First Lady for eight years, it would find Trump “easier to negotiate with,” according to Petrov.
Putin and Clinton have a history of directing jabs at each other, with the Kremlin strongman calling Clinton “weak” in a 2014 interview on French television.
He was speaking after Clinton compared Putin’s meddling in Ukraine to aggression by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, drawing scorn from the Kremlin.
Analysts say that Trump’s calls to revamp US-Russia relations are in the Kremlin’s interests and have added weight to its preference for the Republican candidate.
Trump has also advocated scaling back NATO and US military presence abroad in regions in which Moscow has sought to extend its influence.
He said last week that he would only come to the aid of the Baltic states in the event of a Russian invasion if he judged they had “fulfilled their obligations to us.”
Asked about his attitude to Trump last month, Putin said: “Mr Trump has said that he is ready for a full-scale revival of Russian-American relations. What’s wrong with that? We welcome that.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, speaking Tuesday on CNN, refused to confirm or deny that Russia was the source of the emails his organisation leaked.
“We like to create maximum ambiguity as to who our sources are,” Assange said.
“Perhaps one day the source or sources will step forward and that might be an interesting moment. Some people will have egg on their faces.”