Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory, calling him a “courageous man” who was “hounded from all sides” and saying he was ready to talk to the president-elect about Ukraine.
They were Putin’s first public remarks on Trump since he won Tuesday’s presidential vote. Russia’s leader made them late Thursday during an event where he spoke for several hours in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Trump has repeatedly said he can end the war in Ukraine, caused by Russia’s unprovoked February 2022 invasion, “in a day.” He has not elaborated on how he could make that happen. Speculation has focused on whether Trump may seek to leverage Putin’s oft-stated admiration for him to engineer some kind of peace deal.
Officials in Ukraine worry that Trump’s election may slow, or halt entirely, U.S. military aid when he takes office in January. They also caution that Putin, whatever he promises, can’t be trusted.
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“We have to do everything to ensure that the results of our interaction between Ukraine and America, the whole of Europe and America, are productive and positive,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.
In his address, Putin said he was “ready” for dialogue with Trump on Ukraine. He said a July assassination attempt on Trump − during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania − made an “impression” on him.
“People show who they are in extraordinary circumstances. This is where a person reveals himself. And he showed himself, in my opinion, in a very correct manner, courageously. Like a man,” Putin said.
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Russia’s president also claimed that during Trump’s first White House term he was “hounded by all sides,” a statement that may resonate with the former president who has long alleged, often without providing evidence, that he’s a victim of “bad people” on issues from election interference to his criminal prosecutions.
Trump has repeatedly spoken favorably of Putin and a recent book by the journalist Bob Woodward asserted that Trump may have had as many as seven private phone calls with Putin since leaving the White House. Putin has a long history of using misinformation, propaganda and flattery and taking actions that don’t match his words. Putin claimed during the campaign that he would prefer to see Vice President Kamala Harris win the election.
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“I would caution any world leader about trusting Vladimir Putin with anything,” Emily Harding, who led the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into 2016 Russian election interference and is now a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said last month.
Trump said in an interview with NBC on Thursday that Putin was not among the dozens of world leaders with whom he had already spoken, but that he expected a call soon. “I think we’ll speak,” said Trump.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Putin congratulates Trump on election victory
