The United States and Russia have confirmed that Monday's summit between their two leaders will go ahead as planned despite tension over allegations that Russian intelligence officers interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections.

US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet for talks in the Finnish capital, Helsinki.

"It's on," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

Officials in Russia say they are looking forward to the meeting.

"We consider Trump a negotiating partner," said Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov.
"The state of bilateral relations is very bad. We have to start to set them right," added Ushakov.

However, there are calls for the meeting to be cancelled after American authorities announced criminal charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers yesterday.

The announcement that the Russians had been charged with hacking Democratic officials during the 2016 presidential election sparked a heated war of words between Washington and Moscow.

Russia's foreign ministry described the allegations as a "heap of conspiracy schemes" intended to "damage the atmosphere" before Monday's talks.

It said there was no evidence linking any of the dozen officials to hacking or military intelligence.

But Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has insisted that "the goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the (US) election."

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