Russia displeased with released WikiLeaks cables

PanARMENIAN.Net - Head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Mikhail Fradkov has pledged to give careful consideration to the documents from US diplomatic correspondence released by WikiLeaks.

“WikiLeaks released a treasure trove of analytical material,” he noted. When asked who might benefit from trading this information, Fradkov said that this is a process that needs to be thoroughly examined, according to the Voice of Russia.

In an interview with CNN host Larry King, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin referred to WikiLeaks documents. The legendary host was interested in Putin's reaction to the statements by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who supposedly told his French counterpart that "Russian democracy has disappeared and the government was an oligarchy run by the security services."

When answering the question, Putin stated that Gates was "deeply misled." Putin referred to peculiarities of the US election system saying that in two presidential elections held in the United States, the winner had received a smaller share of the popular vote but won with a majority in the Electoral College, where votes are apportioned by state population.

"When we are talking with our American friends and tell them, there are systemic problems in this regard, we can hear from them 'Don't interfere with our affairs. This is our tradition and it's going to continue like that.' We are not interfering," he said. "But to our colleagues, I would also like to advise: don't interfere either [with] the sovereign choice of the Russian people."

As for suggestions about Putin holding the real power in Russia, the prime minister said that they were aimed "to slander one of us" (either Putin or Medvedev), Pravda.ru reported.