A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denied a report that United States President Donald Trump had shared classified information with senior officials of the ministry, AP reported. This comes a day after The Washington Post carried a report saying Trump had shared details of an operation against the Islamic State with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during their meeting last week.
“Guys, have you been reading US newspapers again?” the spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, wrote on her Facebook page. “You shouldn’t read them. You can put them to various uses, but you shouldn’t read them. Lately it’s become not only harmful, but dangerous too.”
The classified data had been supplied to the US by one of its allies in the fight against the Islamic State, the daily had reported. The information was considered so sensitive that its dissemination with the government was tightly controlled and the ally had not granted the US permission to share the data with Russia. The article had also said Trump’s act could seriously jeopardise information sharing as well as the battle against the Islamic State.
While government officials privy to the matter went into damage control mode and informed the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, the White House denied the reports and said no classified information had been shared with Russia.
Trump has been under increasing scrutiny for his ties with Russia. Last week, he fired Federal Bureau of Information director James Comey, who had been leading an investigation into Moscow’s role in Trump’s presidential poll campaign.
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