“Genius”, “wonderful”, “very bright”. Those are the words used by former US President Donald Trump to describe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions over the conflict in Ukraine.
During an interview with a conservative radio show, Trump was asked what his opinion is about the actions of the White House regarding the conflict in Ukraine. The former president first insisted that things actually went wrong when the elections were “rigged”. But then went on to say that Putin’s actions are “genius”.
Putin declares much of Ukraine independent. Oh, that’s beautiful. So, Putin now says that much of Ukraine is independent. I said, “How smart is that?” And he goes in (with troops, ed.) and becomes a peacekeeper. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peacekeeping force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’d ever seen. They will keep the peace. No, but think about it. This is a very smart man; I know him very well. Very, very good.”
During the radio interview, Trump also said he and Putin had discussed a possible invasion of Ukraine while Trump himself was still in power. “I know he always wanted Ukraine. I always talked to him about it. I said, ‘You can’t do it. You’re not going to do it.” But I could see he wanted it. I asked him. We talked about it for a long time.”