As he flew home to Washington aboard Air Force One, Trump tried to clarify his position via tweet, saying: "As I said today and many times before, 'I have GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people.' However, I also recognise that in order to build a brighter future, we cannot exclusively focus on the past – as the world's two largest nuclear powers, we must get along!" At an earlier press conference, Trump had dismissed his own intelligence reports on Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, saying he preferred to believe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s "extremely strong and powerful" denial. Trump declined to say whether he believed the US intelligence community or Putin. Credit:AP In a surprise twist to the pair’s much-anticipated meeting, the US President said, after hearing Putin’s side of the story, that he didn’t see any reason to believe Russia had interfered – despite his own spy chief, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, telling him the opposite. The comments sparked a storm of condemnation at home, some of it from erstwhile allies.

Republican Senator John McCain called it "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory". Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, a cautious Trump supporter, said: "The President must appreciate that Russia is not our ally." And Republican Trey Gowdy, a critic of the Russia probe, said "Russia is not our friend" and expressed hope that Trump's national security aides could convince him that "it is possible to conclude Russia interfered with our election in 2016 without delegitimising his electoral success." At the joint press conference after the meeting, Putin denied Russian interference, but told journalists they should "trust no one" and said he had wanted Trump to win the election because he had been the more pro-Russian candidate. Putin insisted that Russia and the US did not trust each other. Credit:AP

Asked if he had "kompromat" – compromising material – on Trump, as alleged in an infamous dossier prepared before the election, Putin avoided answering directly though said it would be "utter nonsense" to imagine Russia collected kompromat on every American businessman who visited his country. Putin said reporters should "just disregard those issues and don’t think about this any more". Both he and Trump insisted there had been no collusion between them over the election. All US intelligence agencies have concluded the Kremlin was behind an effort to influence the US election through cyber attacks and social media campaigns targeted at disadvantaging Hillary Clinton. US Special Counsel Robert Mueller last week indicted 12 Russian military intelligence agents, whom he alleged had conspired to hack the Democratic Party’s email system. But Trump said on Monday he "ran a brilliant campaign and that’s why I’m president".

In a pointed question, an Associated Press reporter asked Trump who he believed: the US intelligence community or Putin? Trump said his "people", including Dan Coats, had told him they thought Russia was attempting to interfere in the election. But he had put it to Putin, who "just said it's not Russia". Loading "I don't see any reason why it would be [Russia]," Trump told reporters, though "I have confidence in both parties… I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today." Putin had offered to send Russian officials to help work on the investigation and "I think that's an incredible offer", Trump said.

Coats released a statement shortly after the press conference, saying: "We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security." Trump’s comments on the issue of Russian meddling sparked widespread shock and dismay in the political establishment in the US. Some even dubbed the Helsinki meeting the "surrender summit"; Trump had gone into the meeting claiming he would confront Putin over the issue of Russian meddling. Former CIA director John Brennan tweeted that Trump’s performance in Helsinki "rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanours".

He wrote: "It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you?” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly said the talks between the two presidents had been "magnificent" and "better than super". Loading Trump and Putin spent more than two hours in private talks in Helsinki’s grand presidential palace on Monday without aides present, then just over an hour in a working lunch alongside their most senior aides. But emerged with little detail to announce other than declaring their desire to continue dialogue. The US and Russia will work on a joint humanitarian project to help Syrians displaced by the war, Trump said, and Putin added that the two countries would create a new working group to bring together the captains of Russian and American business.

They will also continue talks on nuclear disarmament and anti-proliferation. Trump said the US-Russia relationship had "never been worse than it is now, however that changed as of about four hours ago". "We have taken the first steps toward a brighter future, and one with a strong dialogue, and a lot of thought," he said. But the biggest fireworks were over allegations that Russia interfered in the election that brought Trump to power. Putin said the Russian state "has never interfered and is not going to interfere into internal American affairs, including election processes". The idea of collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign was "utter nonsense", he said.

Putin presented a soccer ball to Trump during the press conference. Credit:AP But he also told the press conference: "As to who is to be believed and who is not to be believed, you can trust no one". "Where did you get this idea that President Trump trusts me, or I trust him? He defends the interests of the United States of America, and I do defend the interests of the Russian Federation." He said he had wanted Trump to win the election against Clinton "because he talked about bringing the US-Russia relationship back to normal". Trump said he would give the ball to his son, Baron. Credit:AP

He said he would look into a request to extradite the 12 Russian intelligence officers, possibly including their interrogation on Russian soil, but in return he would demand the extradition of Kremlin critics such as Bill Browder, who is behind the anti-Kremlin corruption Magnitsky laws. Trump, asked who was responsible for the deterioration in relations with Russia, said he held "both countries responsible – the US has been foolish … we have both made some mistakes". Loading Trump, who whispered "thank you very much" to Putin as they shook hands and also accepted the gift of a soccer ball for his son from Putin, rowed back on his previous loud criticism of the Nordstream 2 pipeline that will soon bring new Russian gas supplies to Germany. At the NATO summit last week in Brussels, Trump repeatedly attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for agreeing to the pipeline, which he said was a security risk for the defence alliance.

However, on Monday, he said only that he was "not sure necessarily that it’s in the best interests of Germany or not". And he said that, in the gas market, Putin was "a good competitor and the word is a compliment". Putin suggested the two countries could work together to put a floor on the international price of oil and gas. A reporter from The Nation, a progressive US news magazine, was removed from the room by security shortly before the press conference began, after he refused to let go of a handwritten sign saying "nuclear weapon ban treaty". A journalist is removed from the room for trying to stage a protest. Credit:AP