NEW YORK, August 14. /TASS/. Intelligence services in the US and other western countries have come to the conclusion that the Helsinki summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump exceeded Moscow’s expectations, CNN said, citing intelligence sources.

"Russian officials were ‘pleased’ with the Helsinki summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Western intelligence agencies have found, according to two intelligence sources with knowledge of the assessments," CNN said, adding that "the assessments, based on a broad range of intelligence, indicate that the Kremlin believes the July 16 summit delivered a better outcome than it had expected, but that Moscow is perplexed that Trump is not delivering more Russia-friendly policies in its aftermath."

According to the intelligence sources, "the Russians were particularly satisfied with the press conference the two leaders gave in Helsinki after Trump and Putin met for about two hours without staff and accompanied only by translators." "In the 45-minute press conference, Trump discredited US intelligence and American policies more broadly, saying ‘the United States has been foolish’ about ties with Russia," CNN noted.

"A spokesperson for the Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, and the White House did not immediately respond to request for comment," the TV channel added.

Putin-Trump summit

The first full-fledged talks between Putin and Trump took place in Finland’s capital of Helsinki on July 16. The one-on-one meeting between the two presidents lasted for more than two hours. Later, both delegation members joined the presidents for a larger working lunch. The expanded session also lasted for roughly two hours, with the talks covering crucial bilateral and global issues. Both leaders said after the summit that a big step forward had been taken.

While commenting on the summit’s outcome, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow still expected that constructive relations would be established with the United States and other western countries though they did not seem to be willing to work in that direction.

Meanwhile, Trump had to face strong criticism in the United States as the media claimed that he had failed to adopt a tough stance regarding Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election.