Putin said at a press conference that President Obama’s team is spreading “fake” information, calling those who spread unverified accusations about Trump “worse than prostitutes,” according to The Associated Press

CNN reported last week that U.S. intelligence officials briefed Trump on an unverified dossier that claimed Russian spies had compromising information on the president-elect.

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Putin called the report a hoax, echoing Trump's criticism of it.

"In my opinion, there are several goals, some are obvious. The first is to undermine the legitimacy of the elected president of the United States. Incidentally, in this connection I would like to note that — whether people who do it want it or don't want — they greatly damage U.S. interests,” Putin said, according to state-run Russian news agency Sputnik News Putin said when Trump visited Moscow years ago, Russia was unaware of his political ambitions. “Is someone really thinking that our intelligence agencies are chasing every American billionaire, or what? Of course not. It’s just complete nonsense,” the Russian leader said, according to Sputnik. “Prostitution is an ugly social phenomenon. ... But people who order such fakes which are now used against the elected president of the United States, fabricate information and use it in the political struggle, they are worse than prostitutes, they have no moral limits," he added.

The Trump team has denied CNN's report and Trump himself heavily criticized CNN, which reported on the existence and contents of the unverified document, and BuzzFeed, which published the unverified document in its entirety, at his first press conference in months last week.

The U.S. intelligence community has publicly blamed Russia for interfering in the election specifically to help Trump win. Russia has denied hacking into the Democratic National Committee and leaking damaging emails through WikiLeaks.

Putin on Tuesday said Trump won a “convincing victory” and accused his opponents of trying to “stage a Maidan in Washington” — a reference to his belief that the U.S. organized protests in 2014 against Ukraine’s pro-Russia president.

Updated at 9:22 a.m.