Former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and described "great" his decision to recognize the independence of the two breakaway provinces of Donbas, in eastern Ukraine.
"Here we have a guy who is very smart. I know him very well. Very very good"Trump said in reference to Putin during an interview with a conservative radio show.
According to the former Republican president, his first reaction after seeing the head of the Kremlin recognize the independence of the breakaway Ukrainian provinces was to think: "this is great".
"Putin now says: ‘it is independent’, a large part of Ukraine. I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s going in as a peacemaker"said Trump, who joked that a military force like the one deployed by Russia should be sent to the US border with Mexico to control irregular immigration.
The former US president, who during his tenure always claimed to be in good harmony with Putin, defended that the current situation would never have occurred with him in the White House.
"I think he sees this opportunity. I knew that I had always loved Ukraine. I used to talk to him about it. I told him: ‘you can’t do it, you’re not going to do it’, but I saw that he wanted it. (…) We used to talk about it in depth"assured about his conversations with the Russian president.
Trump also predicted that China will follow the Russian example and try to make some move with Taiwan.
The former president, who has hinted that he is considering running for the 2024 presidential elections, also published today a statement on the crisis in Ukraine, assuring that "there was no reason" to get to this point and holding his successor, Joe Biden, accountable.
