Putin denies suggestions Russian Federation would welcome Brexit

It definitely wasn’t casual Friday for President Putin, who spoke for hours at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on the hottest topics on the global agenda, including Russia’s relations with the European Union and Washington.

“The prime minister himself said when we were at G20 in Antalya that he thinks how we should re-establish the relations in full”.

Putin said Friday relations between Canada and Russian Federation have a chance to be re-established after the new prime minister came to power, as he recalled meeting Justin Trudeau at last fall’s G20 summit in Turkey. “And of course we can complement each other”, he said. And we need them. “The Soviet Union is no more, the Warsaw Treaty [between the USSR and eastern European countries] has ceased to exist, so why does NATO need to constantly broaden its infrastructure and move towards Russia’s borders”. Putin’s actually stayed relatively quiet on Clinton through this election cycle but when asked in April about the former secretary of state, he used a Russian proverb saying “husband and wife are the same devil”.

President Vladimir Putin says Russian Federation will work with whoever is elected the new USA president.

“America is a great power, probably the sole superpower today”, Putin said.

Putin, in his speech, said, “In my talks with French and German businessmen I see they want to cooperate with our country”.

“They (Russian counter-sanctions) affect Europe, but they don’t affect the U.S. – they have nil effect”, Putin said.

“He is, isn’t he?” said Putin with a smile.

“Do you think the USA elections are democratic?” he asked, noting that twice in American history the will of the majority has been foiled.

“Well, if they want to, let them put up with it”. “We will work with any president who wins the trust of the American people”.

“No, they had to take it to the coup with victims, to cause bloodshed, civil war, to intimidate the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine’s south-east and in Crimea”. The weekend was set to underline the futility of European and US sanctions which were imposed on Russian Federation over the 2014 annexation of Crimea and its interference in eastern Ukraine. The whole conflict was forced on Ukraine “to substantiate the very existence of the North Atlantic alliance”, the Russian president concluded.

At another point, Putin also said he fully accepted that the United States was probably the only superpower in the world.