President Vladimir Putin said the hacking of thousands of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails and documents was a service to the public, but denied U.S. accusations that Russia's government had anything to do with it.

"Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?" Putin said in an interview at the Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Thursday. "The important thing is the content that was given to the public."

U.S. officials blame hackers guided by the Russian government for the attacks on DNC servers earlier this year that resulted in WikiLeaks publishing about 20,000 private emails just before Hillary Clinton's nominating convention in July. The documents showed attempts by party officials to undermine her chief Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, and led to the resignation of the head of the DNC, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.