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MOSCOW, Mar 4 - RIA Novosti. Russia will not give out to the United States its citizens who were accused of interfering in the US elections in 2016, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with NBC.

No extradition

Answering the question of American TV presenter Megan Kelly, will Russia, at Washington's request, give out its citizens accused of interfering in the presidential elections, Putin said: "Never, Russia does not extradite its citizens to anyone, just like the United States."

At the same time, the president did not confirm or deny the charges brought by the United States. According to him, the above-mentioned people were not represented by the Russian authorities. "What exactly they did, I have no idea," said the head of state.

"I have to look first at what they did, give us the materials, give us information." With all due respect to you personally, with all due respect to the Congress, you should have people with diplomas in jurisprudence, 100% should be, "said Putin .

To Kelly's remark that she has a lawyer's diploma, Putin replied: "People who are well educated must understand that we in Russia can not prosecute anyone who has not violated the laws of Russia .You must understand that an official request is required to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Give us a document, an official demand. "

Putin called on his American counterparts to send an official request and relevant materials instead of "talking to the press." "We are ready to look at this and talk about it," the president said.

"This should go through official channels, and not through the press or screams and cries in the US Congress," he stressed.

Accusations against Moscow

Earlier, CIA director Mike Pompeo, head of the National Security Agency Mike Rogers and head of US National Intelligence Daniel Coates spoke at a hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee. They were asked if they had seen Russia's attempts to influence the upcoming elections, to which all three answered in the affirmative.

In February, the office of the special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating the so-called Russian interference in the presidential election in 2016, promulgated a document that identifies 13 suspected Russians. It took him nine months. The document contains 40 pages.

According to Mueller, 13 Russian citizens, led by restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin, tried to influence the election of the American president.

State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said that the US can impose sanctions against Russians who have fallen into the document issued by Mueller.

The reaction of Russia

In Moscow, they announced a possible response to United States sanctions against Russians from the "Mueller list."

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the authorities always react to such measures.

"We have our own lists of people who are restricted to entering Russia, there are other forms of reaction, I do not rule out anything, but before talking about it, we need to really see what will happen in this story," the diplomat said.

Also, the Deputy Minister advised the Russians, who can get under sanctions, to weigh the situation when going abroad.

"We know quite a few cases when the American structures concerned did not shun abductions of our compatriots, if these structures had any claims to them, that's why the question is serious." Everyone must weigh the situation for himself when he goes abroad. 13 Russian citizens are a classic example.I can not say for what reasons Americans include Russian citizens in certain lists, I think that everyone should understand for themselves, there can be claims to him before revealed by the US law enforcement agencies or not, and, on this basis, to build their behavior, "-. Ryabkov said.

"Absolutely unfounded accusations"

Such accusations against Moscow are periodically heard from the United States and some European countries. At the same time, concrete evidence was not presented in this way.

Russia has repeatedly refuted such statements: thus, the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov called them "absolutely unsubstantiated," and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed to the absence of any supporting facts.

Link: https://ria.ru/world/20180304/1515721843.html