Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Donald Trump on his election victory, but admitted he had “no idea” what a second term would look like.
“His behavior at the moment of an attempt on his life left an impression on me. He turned out to be a brave man,” Putin said at an event in Sochi, one day after Trump’s landslide victory.
The Russian president also remarked on Trump’s courage when gunfire rang out at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, during which the former president was struck in the ear, one spectator died and others were injured. “He manifested himself in the very correct way, bravely as a man,” Putin said.
On what to expect from a second Trump term, he added: “I don’t know what will happen now. I have no idea.”
The Russian president also alluded to Trump’s plan to end the two-and-a-half-year war between Ukraine and Russia “within 24 hours.”
Putin said that Trump’s comments “about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to help end the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion, deserves attention at least.”
A Kremlin spokesperson said they wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Trump and Putin talk before the president-elect takes office in January, the Associated Press reported. Trump also told NBC News on Thursday that he thought he and Putin would get in touch soon.
The former president did, however, already speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday.
“It was a productive conversation, a good conversation,” Zelensky said, describing the call. “Of course, we cannot yet know what his actions will be. But we do hope that America will become stronger.”
A book released last month detailed that Trump had spoken to Putin at least seven times after he left office in 2021.
But Trump’s campaign aides pushed back on this claim, with his spokesperson previously telling The Independent: “None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump derangement syndrome.”
The book also claimed that Trump had secretly sent the Russian president some Covid test machines for his personal use at the height of the pandemic. A Kremlin spokesperson confirmed that Trump had sent Putin the testing equipment.
