Former United States President, George W. Bush has said there was pretty clear evidence that the Russian government meddled in the 2016 US elections that saw the emergence of Republican candidate, Donald Trump as President.

Bush, the 43rd President of the US stated this in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Thursday at a summit organized by the Milken Institute, a think tank based in Santa Monica, California.

Although the Kremlin have severally denied any involvement with the US electoral process,  Washington’s intelligence agencies have concluded that it did.

Bush said it was not clear if Russia’s meddling directly affected the results of the elections, adding that the mere fact that they had even tried to interfere in the elections was dangerous for democracy.

“It’s problematic that a foreign nation is involved in our election. Putin is a brilliant tactician who has the capacity to detect weakness and exploit it,” Bush said.

He added: “He’s got a chip on his shoulder. The reason he does is because the demise of the Soviet Union troubles him. Therefore much of his moves are to regain Soviet hegemony.”

President Trump had repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign organization and Russia.