And The Coveted Putin Endorsement Goes To … Donald Trump!

President Barack Obama has seen Putin briefly twice since then at summits in Turkey and France.

In his annual news conference with hundreds of Russian and foreign journalists, Mr Putin also found time to suggest that beleaguered Fifa football chief Sepp Blatter deserved a Nobel Prize, and lavished praise on controversial United States tycoon and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

Beneath the pyrotechnics, Putin seemed most concerned with driving home the point to his domestic audience that Russia’s battered economy had bottomed out, an indication that Russia’s recession had his full attention. “Putin said Russian Federation would work with “whomever the American voters choose”, but he singled out Trump”. It is not our business to assess his worthiness, but he is the absolute leader of the presidential race. “He says that he wants to move to another level relations, a deeper level of relations with Russia”, Putin said. “How can we not welcome that? Of course we welcome it”, Putin told reporters.

In his 11th annual press conference, Russia’s president expressed confidence in the country’s economy.

Meanwhile, Putin warned of certain countries using Daesh as a pretext to military involvement to protect oil smuggling and illegal crude export.

Trump, who referred to as Putin “extremely revered”, has regularly argued that his enterprise background and skill to barter offers would permit him to enhance relations with Russian Federation, in addition to different nations. The device was recovered by Syrian and Russian troops shortly after the incident and transported to Russia for investigation. “A business was established there, smuggling on huge, industrial scale”, Putin said.

Not only have Russian military strikes had a minimal effect on ISIS, being mostly focused elsewhere, they have also exacerbated an already dire humanitarian crisis.

On the Syrian crisis, Putin reaffirmed Russia’s support to the Assad government, noting that Russian Federation would strive to reach decisions that would please all conflicting sides in Syria.

“There is a plan”, Putin said. Washington and its allies insist that Assad has no role in Syria’s political future. But though he said there was agreement that a new constitution needed to be drawn up and an election held to determine the fate of the conflict-torn country, he signalled Moscow was not yet ready to withdraw its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But he had no such charitable words for Tur-key and made clear he was in no mood to forgive Ankara for shooting down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border on November 24.

Russian Federation and the United States are leading the talks, but Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. told reporters that he sees attempts to “undercut” the communiques that have been agreed upon in the Syria discussions so far.

Putin, 63, a former Soviet KGB officer, has ruled Russian Federation as either president or prime minister for 16 years. “Certainly, we welcome it”, Putin said.