Russia's foreign minister has dismissed as "blather" the charges levelled by the FBI special counsel against 13 Russians for election meddling.

Sergei Lavrov said at a major security conference in Germany he would not comment further until he saw "facts".

The charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller are seen as a major development in his continuing probe into the US 2016 election.

President Trump has said the indictment shows his campaign did "nothing wrong".

The Russian foreign minister was being questioned by participants at the Munich Security Conference.

Asked about the charges, he said that even Vice-President Mike Pence had called the investigation into question.

"So until we see the facts, everything else is just blather."

But Mr Trump's National Security Adviser, H R McMaster, said evidence of Russian meddling was "now incontrovertible".

It would become harder to conceal attempts to "interfere in our democratic process", he added.

In a tweet on Friday evening, Mr Trump repeated that there had been "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia.

However, he did appear to concede that Russia had sought to influence the election. The president has previously disputed US intelligence agency assessments suggesting this.

(Source: BBC)