Putin not watching Trump’s inauguration live: Kremlin

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t be watching the live ceremony of Mr Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday (Jan 20), his spokesman said, rubbishing the idea of him being Moscow’s man in Washington.

“I don’t think that he plans to watch it live but of course he will follow it in the news, perhaps even as the main news item,” Mr Peskov told journalists.

Separately, he told Rossiya 24 state channel it would be a grave mistake for foreign and domestic observers to assume Mr Trump is Mr Putin’s man in Washington.

Mr Trump “is not our man, he is an American man, he is the president of the United States.

“And it’s probably the biggest mistake by Western analysts, by some of our political observers, to consider that he is ‘our man’.”

Rossiya 24 is one of two Russian state television channels that will broadcast Friday’s inauguration ceremony live.

Moscow has dismissed explosive allegations that the Kremlin ordered cyber attacks by Russia’s intelligence agencies which helped sway the election in Mr Trump’s favour and that it had compiled a compromising dossier on him.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also rejected the idea Moscow had seen Mr Trump as a “pro-Russian” candidate, while adding that his opponent Mrs Hillary Clinton clearly had a “Russophobic attitude”.

“With that backdrop, many considered that the second candidate would be pro-Russian, but this wasn’t the case,” she told the Echo of Moscow radio station. AFP