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Vladimir Putin put in a row of terrorist attacks in London and an attack on a division of the Russian Guard in Chechnya. He stated this during a meeting with a candidate for the post of President of France Marin Le Pen, the Kremlin press service reports .

“After the tragic events in London, literally today, in the North Caucasus, in Chechnya, we also had a difficult event: one of the units of our national guard was attacked by terrorists,” the Russian president said. “We must realize the reality of this danger and combine efforts in the fight against terrorism.”

Putin also said that Russia does not intend to intervene in the course of the French election campaign. "In no case do we want to somehow influence the events that are taking place, but we reserve the right to communicate with all representatives of all the political forces of the country, just as our partners in Europe, the United States."

The Russian president called Le Pen, the leader of the ultra -right "National Front", a representative of "a sufficiently quickly developing spectrum of European political forces."

In turn, Le Pen expressed regret that the inter -parliamentary contacts of Russia and the EU practically stopped. "I would like to note that I perceive the fact that Russian deputies cannot meet with colleagues from the European Union countries," she said.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that Le Pen's visit to Moscow was organized along the inter-parliamentary line. According to him, the reason for the meeting of the French presidential candidate with Putin was her visit to the Kremlin. According to him, Le Pen visited the exhibition of French works of art in the Patriarchal Chambers, "and on this occasion it was adopted in the Kremlin President Putin." According to adviser Le Pen, the meeting lasted about an hour and a half.

Since the beginning of the year, Le Pen made three foreign trips: in the USA, Lebanon and Chad. She did not meet with American President Donald Trump.

Earlier on Friday, the time of the meeting with the Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin Le Pen opposed anti -Russian sanctions. “I always advocated the abolition of sanctions that I consider counter -productive. I consider the violation of democratic rights to the ban on parliamentarians to talk to each other, work together. I hope that France can, I can defend the position according to which we would cancel“ black lists ”, at least in France,” she said.

"We do not believe in either the diplomacy of threats, nor in the diplomacy of sanctions, nor in the diplomacy of blackmail, which, unfortunately, the EU has recently applied to the Russian Federation and against its own members," Le Pen said.

On January 17, in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, Le Pen spoke for the abolition of sanctions and the recognition of Crimea by the Russian . "I intend to provide France for independence from the United States and NATO and restore normal relations between France and Russia, in particular, by lifting unfair and ineffective sanctions," said the leader of the National Front.

Le Pen again confirmed that she considers Crimea by Russian territory. "After the referendum, which showed the consent of the people to join Russia, I also recognize the Crimea part of the Russian Federation. The Crimea belonging to Ukraine was only an administrative issue of Soviet times, the peninsula was never Ukrainian," she said. The head of the Ultra Party also stated that in case of victory, it would initiate a referendum to withdraw France from the EU.

In early January, the French media reported that the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency filed a lawsuit with a request to recover a loan debt issued by the National Front in 2014 by the First Czech-Russian Bank. The Central Bank withdrew the license from this bank back in July 2016.

In November 2014, the First Czech-Russian Bank issued a loan of the size of nine million euros to the election campaign. According to the correspondence of Russian officials published by the Hackers of the Anonymous International, the loan could be "gratitude" for the position of Le Pen on the Crimea.