The Kremlin confirms Trump sent Covid testing equipment to Putin and denies Putin's phone calls since leaving office

Former President Donald Trump sent coronavirus testing equipment to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the height of the pandemic, the Kremlin confirmed Wednesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg News in a written statement that “we also sent equipment at the beginning of the pandemic.”

The story was originally reported in “War,” a new book by veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward that chronicles Trump and President Joe Biden's relationships with foreign leaders.

The book claims that Trump secretly sent Abbott Covid-19 testing equipment to Putin when the equipment was in short supply. NBC News could not independently verify this.

Peskov also rejected Woodward's claim that Trump and Putin have spoken on the phone several times since Trump left office. “No, that’s not true,” he told Russian broadcaster RBC.

Trump also denied the reporting in an interview with ABC News' Jonathan Karl. “He is a storyteller. A bad thing. And he lost his mind,” Trump said of Woodward.

In a separate statement to Bloomberg, Trump's re-election team accused the journalist of bias and said: “None of these fabricated stories from Bob Woodward are true.”

The book, due out Oct. 15, raises questions about how Trump would handle the war in Ukraine if re-elected and whether he would continue to provide aid to the country.

Trump has repeatedly said he could resolve the war between Russia and Ukraine in a day if he were re-elected president. But when asked about this claim in July, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzia told reporters that “the Ukraine crisis cannot be solved in one day.”

The Republican candidate said last month that his relationship with Putin was “very good.” He said the same thing about his ties to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the two met at Trump Tower last month.

As a private citizen, Trump would need the express permission of the sitting president to negotiate on behalf of the US government.

Woodward says in the book that senior adviser Jason Miller told him in July that he was “not aware of any conversations” between Trump and Putin, but if they wanted to talk, “they would know how to get in touch with each other.”

Trump's critics have long objected to his friendliness toward authoritarian leaders, including Putin. Trump called Putin a “very smart” and “strong man” and praised Russia's invasion of Ukraine as “brilliant.”