Donald Trump honored by Putin’s complements

Putin offered high praise for the billionaire businessman-turned-Republican presidential front-runner on Thursday during an annual news conference with reporters.

“I suppose (Putin) sympathizes with Trump without knowing him well in person, but he is following him closely, what he does and says, just because he is not a kind of usual Western politician”, said Alexander Baunov, an analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center. “Of course we welcome it”.

After hearing President Putin’s comments on Thursday, Mr Trump released a statement praising the Russian leader.

In October, Mr Trump told US TV network CBS that he and Mr Putin would “probably get along… very well”.

“I have always felt that Russian Federation and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect”.

The Russian leader was speaking in Moscow as part of his end-of-year news conference for Russian and worldwide press.

“In general, it suits us”, Putin said.

And in that outlook, there’s also a shared oversimplification, Gessen claimed. It is they who are always trying to “help out” with what needs to be done inside our country, who should be elected and who shouldn’t, in what way.

“If someone in the Turkish leadership chose to lick the Americans in a particular place, I don’t know whether they acted correctly or not and I don’t know… whether the Americans needed that”, Mr Putin, said referring to the shooting-down.

But he had warm words for Mr Trump, telling viewers: “He says that he wants to move to another, closer level of relations”.

While most Republican presidential contenders have demonized the Russian president – including calling him a “gangster” and a “thug” – and pushed plans to isolate Russia on the world stage, Trump has instead touted his ability to improve Washington-Moscow relations by working with the iron-fisted Russian leader. “I think that he’s a strong leader”.

GOP rivals such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush have gone after Trump over his endorsement from Putin, who critics have blasted over his country’s response to events including the situation in Ukraine.

Asked about Russia’s intervention in the civil war in Syria, Putin said Russian forces would remain there at least until a democratic process is launched.

“Russia wants to get rid of ISIS”.

Russia and the United States are leading the talks, but Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, has said that he sees attempts to “undercut” the communiques that have been agreed upon in the Syria discussions so far.