In what comes as one of the most blunt endorsements of US President Donald Trump's refusal to accept defeat in the 2020 presidential elections, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the crisis in Ukraine would not have emerged if 'they had not stolen victory from him (Trump) in 2020'. Putin, who was being interviewed by Russian state television, praised Trump as he called him a "clever and pragmatic man.".
Here's what Putin said
Putin was responding to Trump's repeated claims in which he underscored that under his watch as the president, the crisis would not have unfolded in Ukraine. Putin said, "I couldn't disagree with him that if he had been president, if they hadn't stolen victory from him in 2020, the crisis that emerged in Ukraine in 2022 could have been avoided."
While Trump claims that he wouldn't have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office, the fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv's forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022 during his presidency.
Putin also said that the sanctions imposed on Russia during Trump's first term and under Joe Biden's administration had hurt US interests, undermining the dollar's role in the global financial system.
We'd better meet and have a calm conversation: Putin
The Russian President expressed his desire to meet Trump, saying, "We'd better meet and have a calm conversation on all issues of interest to both the United States and Russia based on today's realities."
Trump, who addressed the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, said that the OPEC+ alliance of oil-exporting countries shares responsibility for the nearly 3-year-old conflict in Ukraine because it has kept oil prices too high. “If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” he said.
Notably, a major portion of Russian exports is in the form of energy, which has kept the Russian economy buoyed in the midst of the war.
Putin stressed that as top oil producers and major industrial powers, both Russia and the US aren't interested in global oil prices being either too low or too high.
(With inputs from AP)
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