(Washington) Donald Trump saw “genius” in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy on Ukraine on Tuesday, castigating in passing his successor Joe Biden’s management of the crisis.
Updated yesterday at 5:47 p.m.
Watching Vladimir Putin’s speech on Monday, in which the Russian president declared that he recognized the independence of two breakaway territories from Ukraine, “I said ‘that’s genius,'” the Republican billionaire told a conservative podcast.
“How clever is he,” added the former president about Mr. Putin, praising in passing his relationship with the Russian leader.
The closeness between the two men has in the past been the subject of strong criticism.
Assuring that he knows Vladimir Putin “very well”, Donald Trump also judged in a press release that the Russian leader “would never have done under the Trump administration what he is doing now”.
Denouncing the way his successor Joe Biden is handling the file, he hammered that “there was absolutely no reason for the situation currently unfolding in Ukraine to take place at all”.
Donald Trump, who is flirting with the possibility of returning to the race for the White House, has also described as “weak” the sanctions adopted for the moment by the Biden administration.
“They are insignificant compared to the capture of a country and strategically located lands,” accused the former leader.
“Not only does Putin get what he always wanted, but he is getting richer and richer thanks to the boom in oil and gas,” he added.
After the first cautious sanctions, specifically targeting pro-Russian separatist territories in Ukraine, the White House stepped up its response against Moscow on Tuesday, unveiling new sanctions aimed in particular at the Russian banking sector.