Russian President Vladimir Putin called allegations of interference in the U.S. presidential election a “fiction” created by Democrats as an excuse for their defeat at the ballot box.

“They simply lost, and they must acknowledge it,” Mr. Putin said in an interview published Tuesday in the French newspaper Le Figaro.

“They want to explain to themselves and prove to others that they had nothing to do with it, their policy was right, they have done everything well, but someone from the outside cheated them. It’s not so,” he said. “People who lost the vote hate to acknowledge that they indeed lost because the person who won was closer to the people and had a better understanding of what people wanted.”

Allegations that Moscow interfered in the election and that the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow have consumed U.S. politics and become a major distraction for President Trump.