Former President Donald Trump sent coronavirus testing equipment to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the height of the pandemic, the Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg News in a written statement that “we also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic.”
The story was initially reported in “War,” a new book by veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward that reports on Trump and President Joe Biden’s relationships with foreign leaders.
The book claims that Trump secretly sent Abbott Covid-19 testing equipment to Putin when the machines were in short supply. NBC News has not been able to independently verify this.
Peskov also denied Woodward’s claim that Trump and Putin have spoken on the phone several times since Trump left office. “No, that is not true,” he told Russian channel RBC.
Trump also denied the reports in an interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl. “He is a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles,” Trump said of Woodward.
In a separate statement to Bloomberg, Trump’s reelection team accused the journalist of bias and said that “none of these fabricated stories from Bob Woodward are true.”
The book, which will be published on October 15, raises questions about how Trump would handle the war in Ukraine if re-elected and whether he would continue to provide aid to the country.
Trump has repeatedly said he can settle the war between Russia and Ukraine in one day if he is re-elected president. But when asked about this claim in July, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vassily Nebenzia, told reporters that “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.”
The Republican candidate said last month that his relationship with Putin is “very good.” He said the same about his ties to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the two met at Trump Tower last month.
As a private citizen, Trump would need the explicit permission of the sitting president to negotiate on behalf of the US government.
Woodward says in the book that senior adviser Jason Miller told him in July that he was “not aware” of conversations between Trump and Putin, but that if they wanted to speak, “they would know how to get in touch.” come. ”
Trump’s critics have long criticized his coziness with authoritarian leaders, including Putin. Trump called Putin “very smart” and a “strong man” and praised Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
