Moscow had no doubt that the Americans would start looking for spy devices at the ball that Russian President Vladimir Putin presented to his colleague Donald Trump in Helsinki in 2016. This was stated by the press secretary of the Head of State, Dmitry Peskov, in an interview with VGTRK journalist Pavel Zarubin.
“You know, at that point we had already been working with the Americans for several years and we knew that was how it would be.” — said Peskov, answering the question whether it could be assumed that the friendly gesture of the Russian leader would provoke such a reaction, TASS reported.
On July 16 in Helsinki, Putin handed US President Trump a soccer ball from the 2018 World Cup. In Washington, some feared it might contain a listening device.
Bloomberg later reported that the ball could contain a chip, as evidenced by the corresponding logo. However, according to him, it is not a listening device, but rather an NFC chip (Near Field Communication, technology for wireless data transmission between devices at a distance of about 10 cm), which allows interaction with the ball through a smartphone. giving the user access to exclusive content. Adidas equipped the official balls of the World Cup held in Russia with this chip.
