Former US president Donald Trump said that the ‘genius’ move by Vladimir Putin to declare two regions in Ukraine as ‘independent’ would make gas prices surge, giving Putin what he ‘always wanted… getting richer and richer’.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said in a radio interview on Tuesday.
“I said, ‘How smart is that?’ And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. … We could use that on our southern border. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re going to keep the peace all right. Here’s a guy who’s very savvy … I know him very well. Very, very well.”
In a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll, 62 percent of Republicans and GOP-leading independents said Putin is “a stronger leader” than Biden, while an additional 25 percent declined to choose between the American and Russian presidents.
Vladimir Putin’declared the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of eastern Ukraine as independent on Monday.
Slamming the Joe Biden administration for its handling of the Ukraine crisis, Trump said that Washington’s response to Moscow’s manoeuvres was ‘weak’ and did not match the Russian actions in the neighbouring nation.
