MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin, deriding as “political schizophrenia” a furor in Washington over President Trump’s sharing of classified intelligence with Russia, said on Wednesday that he was ready to give American lawmakers “a record” of the Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and senior Russian diplomats.
Mr. Putin, speaking at a joint news conference in Sochi, Russia, with Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy, did not specify what record he had of the meeting between Mr. Trump; the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov; and Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey I. Kislyak. Mr. Putin insisted the whole episode was a tempest in a teacup, whipped up for political reasons.
“If the U.S. administration finds this appropriate, we’re ready to provide a record of the conversation between Lavrov and Trump to the U.S. Senate and Congress,” the Russian president said. The Russian word for “record” can refer to an audio recording, but the Interfax news agency quoted a Kremlin aide, Yuri V. Ushakov, as telling reporters that Moscow had in its possession a written record of the conversation, not a recording.
Officials in Washington have said that Mr. Trump disclosed to Mr. Lavrov highly classified information provided by Israeli intelligence about a planned terrorist operation by the Islamic State extremist group.
Mr. Putin dismissed that claim, saying, “It’s hard to imagine what else these people who generate such nonsense and rubbish can dream up next.”
He also returned to a favorite Kremlin theme: that Russia is the victim of Russophobic hysteria gripping the political establishment, notably Mr. Trump’s foes, in the United States.
“What surprises me is that they are shaking up the domestic political situation using anti-Russian slogans,” Mr. Putin said. “Either they don’t understand the damage they’re doing to their own country, in which case they are simply stupid, or they understand everything, in which case they are dangerous and corrupt.”
Making light of the Oval Office episode and the value of Mr. Trump’s disclosures, which set off a political firestorm in Washington, Mr. Putin joked that he would reprimand Mr. Lavrov because “he hasn’t shared those secrets with us.”
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