The Real Meaning of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin Press Conference BY JULIA IOFFE- The Atlantic

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The Russian leader tries to claim the role of senior partner in relationship with the U.S. Classic Putin is a master of the confirmation-by-denial trick, as he was Tuesday when he said that the DNC hacking scandal was a false flag, “but I want to reiterate, the hackers didn’t doctor anything, they didn’t make anything up. Whoever they may have been, they just unearthed the information.” Or when he said that whoever is doing this—all of this—is trying “to undermine the legitimacy of the newly elected president. And in regards to that, I’d like to note, whether the people who are doing this want to or not, they are doing massive damage to the interests of the United States. Massive damage.”