Putin: Trump is ‘bright, talented’

Associated Press

MOSCOW

In Vladimir Putin’s view, Donald Trump is “bright and talented.” But as much as those words sound overtly like praise, there are some murky nuances.

The most unequivocally favorable part of the comments the Russian leader made Thursday to a scrum of reporters after his annual year-end news conference was about the Republican presidential aspirant’s claims that he wants to improve relations with Russia.

“He says that he wants to move to another, closer level of relations. Can we really not welcome that? Of course we welcome that,” Putin said.

Trump hasn’t given details about how he would go about achieving that, relying instead on his fireproof self-regard.

“I think that I would probably get along with him very well,” Trump said in an October interview with CBS.

Putin “does not like Obama at all. He doesn’t respect Obama at all. And I’m sure that Obama doesn’t like him very much,” Trump had said.

Russia-U.S. relations have hit a particularly low point during the Obama administration, with the Kremlin persistently alleging that Washington’s pressure on Moscow over human rights and the sanctions imposed over Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine are a cover for fomenting unrest aimed at driving Putin out of office.