MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Sunday it did not believe the US administration was responsible for Saturday’s assassination attempt on US presidential candidate Donald Trump, but that it had created an atmosphere that provoked the attack.
Trump was shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania, in an attack now being investigated as an assassination attempt. The attacker was shot dead, law enforcement officials said, adding they had not yet identified a motive.
“We do not believe that the attempt to eliminate Trump was organised by the current authorities,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “But the atmosphere around Trump…provoked what America is confronting today.”
Peskov said Russia condemned any violence in the course of the political struggle. His comments echoed those of Trump’s Republican allies, who immediately pinned the blame on Biden.
“After numerous attempts to remove Trump from the political arena using legal tools, courts, prosecutors, attempts to politically discredit and compromise the candidate it was obvious to all outside observers that his life was in danger,” Peskov said. He added that there were no plans for Putin to call Trump in light of the incident.
Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of Russia’s lower house of Parliament, said American political crisis, its focus on “interfering” in other nations’ affairs and deep divisions in society were all causes behind the attack on Trump. “With its years-long policy, the US has let itself reach literally the brink of civil war,” Volodin wrote on Telegram.