Obama admits to 'underestimating' Russian President Putin

According to TNHK, after the US intelligence concluded that Russia interfered in the presidential election, US President Barack Obama said he had "underestimated" the impact of disinformation campaigns and computer intrusions on a democracy.

US President Barack Obama. (Source: EPA/VNA)

Speaking on ABC News' "This Week," President Obama said he did not underestimate Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is accused by the US intelligence community of ordering efforts to undermine the US democratic electoral system, as well as to undermine Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, President-elect Donald Trump's opponent.

Still, Mr. Obama said: “I think, in this new information age, I underestimated the extent to which online disinformation and intrusions…can have an impact on our open societies, our open systems, to infiltrate our democratic practices in ways that I think are rapidly increasing.”

The US president said he released a shortened US intelligence report on Russian cyber intrusions "to make sure that we understand that this is something that Mr. Putin has been doing for a considerable period of time in Europe, initially in former vassal states where there are a lot of Russian speakers, but increasingly in Western democracies."

The US intelligence community has concluded that Russia hacked thousands of emails from John Podesta, the head of Mrs Clinton's campaign, and released them through the WikiLeaks website.

Many of the emails revealed embarrassing details showing Democratic Party staffers trying to help Clinton defeat rival Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the party's presidential nomination./.

According to Vietnamplus