Moscow will never extradite 13 Russians indicted by US: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed that Moscow will “never” allow the extradition of 13 Russian nationals who have been indicted by the US for alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election in favor of incumbent American President Donald Trump.

The Russian president made the remarks in an exclusive interview with NBC TV airing on Sunday, according to an English voiceover of his words, illustrating the long odds that the Russian operatives would ever appear in an American court to answer charges of purportedly meddling with the 2016 vote.

“Never. Never. Russia does not extradite its citizens to anyone,” Putin confirmed, insisting even if they did not act on behalf of his government.

The two countries have no extradition treaty with each other and, hence, Washington cannot compel Moscow to hand over its citizens. Furthermore, Russia's constitution prohibits extraditing its citizens to foreign countries.

Last month, the US Justice Department's Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the alleged Russian meddling, indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of interfering in elections in the US as part of what is called a conspiracy to support Trump and disparage Hillary Clinton.

In late 2016, Washington alleged that Russia, through running an alleged massive, secret social media trolling and targeted messaging operation, had influenced the US presidential election in November that year to help Trump get elected, an allegation that Russia strongly denied. 

Back then, the outgoing administration of President Barack Obama threatened that the United States would respond to the alleged Russian meddling “at the time and place" of its choosing.

Putin urged Washington to provide Moscow with hard evidence such as “some materials, specifics and data” to back their provocative claims, saying Russia would be “prepared to look at them and talk about it,” as he repeated his government's insistence that it had no role in directing the operatives to act against the US. He mocked accusations to date as “yelling and hollering” in US Congress.

Furthermore, he asserted he knew “that they do not represent the Russian state, the Russian authorities.” “What they did specifically, I have no idea,” he added.

PressTV-US 'blabbering' on Russia election meddling: Lavrov

The US Justice Department has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities.

In November 2017, Putin strongly rejected as “fantasies” claims that Moscow interfered in the election in favor of Trump. The Russian president also in December renewed Russia’s rejection of the same accusations, saying the claims were nothing more than “espionage mania.”

There are currently multiple investigations by US security agencies into the case.

Despite lack of significant proof, the accusations of Moscow’s alleged tampering with the election persist as a hot topic in Washington, contributing largely to the worst deterioration in Russian-American ties since the Cold War.

President Trump himself has repeatedly told Americans that the allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia were not true. Back on February 16, shortly after the publication of Mueller’s lengthy report, he said that “the results of the election were not impacted.”

“The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!” he added.

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