News Digest

Putin hails ‘bright and talented’ Donald Trump, says ready to improve U.S. ties

It wasn’t quite an endorsement, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has praised Donald Trump’s talents and lauded his calls for better ties with Russia. Asked during his three-hour annual news conference about the prospect of a new U.S. president, Putin, whose relationship with Barack Obama is strained at best, said, “We first have to understand who it is going to be.”

He is a very flamboyant man, very talented, no doubt about that. … It’s not up to us to judge his virtue — that is up to U.S. voters. But he is the absolute leader of the presidential race.

President Vladimir Putin

As he welcomed Trump’s calls for improved relations between the two countries, Putin did claim, ahead of an international conference Friday, that Russia and the U.S. agree on a general approach to settling the Syrian crisis. Putin also said that Russia will continue its air campaign in Syria until a political process starts, and lashed out at Turkey for trying to “lick the Americans in some of their private parts” by downing a Russian warplane.

I will get along — I think — with Putin, and I will get along with others, and we will have a much more stable … stable world.

Donald Trump, in September