(CNN) US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday he believes that Russia will try to undermine democracies around the world for the foreseeable future.

"I have great confidence that the Russians will try and undermine western democracy in 2017, 2018, 2019 and for an awfully long time," Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News.

"It is our responsibility as leaders of United States government to do all that we can to deter them from interfering with us, not only in our elections, but more broadly as well."

Pompeo's comments came just days after President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin one-on-one in Helsinki. Trump provoked furor in Washington when, standing beside Putin at a news conference, he declined to endorse the assessment from the US intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

The next day, Trump told reporters that he had misspoken

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