Russia refused on Monday claims in US media that President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had conducted a phone conversation over the past weekend following Trump's election victory.
"There was no conversation… This is completely untrue, it is pure fiction," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a daily briefing in Moscow, addressing reporters.
Peskov, also the Press Secretary of Russian President questioned the authenticity of US publications that had earlier claimed the fake conversation.
"(Shows) The most obvious example of the quality of the information that is now being published, sometimes even in fairly respected publications," Peskov told Russia's Tass news agency.
According to a leading US media outlet, Trump apparently rang up Putin from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, which would have been their first conversation since Trump's great win over the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris.
According to the report, Trump called for Putin to stave off further escalation of the current war over Ukraine and expressed an interest in meeting with Moscow to ease tensions and bring an end to the conflict that began in February 2022.
It further said that Trump emphasized that a strong US military presence in Europe was critical; hence, his commitment was to exert American influence toward a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. Forcing the end of the war had constituted one of the main campaign promises for the Republican leader.
Kyiv also reportedly said it heard nothing about the possible call ahead of time between Trump and Putin.
