MOSCOW, December 23./TASS/. Ronald Reagan would have been happy about the victory of Republicans in US elections, including the presidential election, though nobody in the US believed in it," President Vladimir Putin said at his annual news conference on Friday.

"I think Reagan would have been glad to see representatives of his party winning everywhere," he said. "And he would have been happy for the newly elected president, who was sensitive enough to feel the moods of the society and worked exactly within that paradigm, going to the end, though nobody but you and I believed that he would win," Putin said.

Cyberattacks and US presidential election  

Calls upon the US electoral college members to neglect their obligations and vote against Donald Trump amount to attempts to divide the country, Putin told reporters. 

"Those calling upon the electros not to vote for some candidate, the US president-elect in this case, actually attempt to divide the nation." 

Putin has also pointed out that cyberattacks reveal true information about public opinion in US being manipulted:

Those who lose always try to find someone to blame, Putin said when asked to comment on the allegations about Russia’s interference in the US presidential election.

"I have already said that losers always try to find someone to blame but they had better tackle their own problems," Putin said. According to him, those who accuse Russia of cyberattacks, forget one important thing:

The Russian president has noted that members of the US Democratic Party have forgotten the original definition of the word "democratic".  

"The fact that the current ruling party called democratic has blatantly forgotten the original definition of its name is evident if one takes into consideration unscrupulous use of administrative resource and appeals to electors not to concede to voters’ choice," he said.

"Imagine, someone hacked the US Democratic Party’ leadership’s email accounts. As the US President-elect said, no one can say for sure the hackers were Russians, they could have been operating from another country. The main thing, in my opinion, is that what kind of information was revealed," the Russian president stressed.

According to Putin, "these cyberattacks showed that the Democrats had been manipulating the election to help one candidate and hurt another, Mr. Sanders. After that, the Democratic National Committee chair resigned which proves that the information was true. She actually acknowledged that the hackers had revealed truth about manipulating public opinion," Putin said.

Putin added that the US officials should have apologized to the voters rather than try to find out who was behind the cyberattacks. 

US election system is outdated

Putin believes that the main problem of democracy in the United States is rooted in its archaic election system.

"As far as democracy is concerned, I can say that there are problems. We’ve long been talking about that, but our US partners always brushed that aside. The archaic election system of the United States is number one problem," he told the annual news conference in Moscow on Friday.

Putin recalled that the US president was elected in two phases.

The head of state is not elected directly by secret ballot. The voters first form an Electoral College, whose members then name the president," he said.

The second phase of the US presidential election - voting by electors - was conducted on December 19. The Republican candidate, Donald Trump, received 304 votes, and his Democratic rival, 227 votes. The eventual outcome was slightly different from the will expressed by the people on November 8 (306 votes for Trump and 232 votes for Hillary Clinton). Seven electors ignored the voters’ will to make the choice at their sole discretion.