Obama on Russian hacking: 'We need to take action and we will'

US President Barack Obama said on Thursday (16 December) that America will "take action" in response to Russia's alleged hacking during the recent election. The pesident also said that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin is "well aware of my feelings about this, because I spoke to him directly about it."

In the interview with the US's National Public Radio, Obama struck a tough stance: "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action and we will at a time and place of our own choosing."

CNN noted that Obama previously told reporters he had brought up cybersecurity issues with Putin during a September meeting of the G20 in China.

When asked in the interview about the nature of America's response to Russia, Obama said that "some of it may be explicit and publicised; some of it may not be."

The CIA reportedly concluded at the end of last week that Kremlin-linked hackers had been behind the leaking of Hillary Clinton's campaign chief's emails to the website Wikileaks and that they had wanted to help Donald Trump win the election.

On Wednesday, US officials said that Putin was personally involved in the hacking and White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he thought Trump was "obviously aware" of the alleged help his campaign was getting from Russia.