Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his victory in the US election on Thursday, praised him for his courage when a gunman tried to assassinate him and said Moscow was open to dialogue with the Republican president-elect.
In his first public speech since Trump’s victory, Putin said at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July that Trump acted like a real man when he was assassinated.
“I think he behaved very correctly, courageously, like a real man,” Putin said at the Valday discussion club in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. “I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election.”
Putin said that Trump’s views on restoring relations with Ukraine and Russia during the election campaign deserve attention.
“What is said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to end the crisis in Ukraine, in my opinion, it deserves at least attention,” Putin said.
Trump said during the campaign that if elected he could achieve peace in Ukraine within 24 hours, but gave few details on how he would try to end Europe’s largest land war since World War II.
The 72-year-old Kremlin leader gave only one warning: “I don’t know what will happen now. I have no information.”
When asked by a questioner what he would do if Trump called to offer a meeting, Putin said he was ready to resume contacts if the Trump administration asked for it and was open to discussions with Trump.
Russia and Trump have repeatedly called some claims in the Western media that Trump is some kind of agent of Russian influence as nonsense. Russian officials say that during Trump’s first presidency, from 2017 to 2021, he was tough on Russia.
Special counsel Robert Mueller investigated allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 US presidential election, but said in a 2019 report that he found no evidence of collusion.
Moscow has also repeatedly denied US allegations that Russia interfered in the 2024 presidential election and other presidential elections and spread disinformation in an attempt to create chaos.
WAR?
The 2-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine is entering its final, most dangerous phase, according to some Russian and Western officials, after the fastest advance by Moscow’s forces since the first weeks of the conflict and the West’s thinking. how the war will end.
On June 14, Putin announced his terms for an end to the war: Ukraine would have to abandon its NATO ambitions and withdraw all its troops from all of the four regions claimed by Russia.
Russia controls Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, about 80% of Donbas – the coal-steel zone that includes Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and more than 70% of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Speaking for several hours on Thursday, Putin railed against the “adventurism” of Western leaders, whom he accused of pushing the world to a “dangerous line” in an attempt to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine.
“Pressuring us is useless. But we are always ready for negotiations, taking into account mutual legitimate interests,” Putin said seconds after reprimanding Western Ukraine and Georgia for their promise to join NATO in 2008.
According to him, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the West never accepted Russia as an equal partner, treated it as a defeated state, and expanded the US-led NATO military alliance eastwards towards Russia.
Putin said that Russia is ready to restore relations with the United States, but the ball is in Washington’s court. Putin also said that China is an “ally” of Russia.
“Putin doesn’t eat people,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov laughed when asked about Kamala Harris’ warning that Putin would eat Trump for dinner.