The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, tried to fish the controversial and agitated figure of Donald Trump yesterday during the speech at the Eastern Economic Forum, which was held in Vladivostok, capital of the Russian Far East, on the Pacific coast. The legal proceedings against the former American president show that the political system of the United States is "rotten", said the head of the Kremlin.
Putin stated, however, that Russia has no hope that Trump's return to the US presidency will change either relations between the two countries or the conflict with Ukraine.
Trump is the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. But he faces a series of criminal prosecutions, including an attempt to reverse the defeat of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.
According to Putin, what is happening to Trump is good for Russia, because "it highlights all the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot teach others about democracy".
"Everything that is happening with Trump is a politically motivated persecution of a political rival. And it is being done before the eyes of the public of the United States and the whole world. They have left the internal problems exposed", he continued. "This is good, because it shows who is fighting against us. It shows, as they said in the Soviet era, 'the beastly face of US imperialism, the beastly smile'".
Putin also emphasized that he does not believe that anything will change with respect to Russia if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election. "I believe that there will be no fundamental changes in terms of US foreign policy towards Russia, no matter who is elected president" , he said. Washington would continue to see Russia as an enemy regardless of who wins the 2024 US election, he added. And he recalled that it was Trump who imposed the largest amount of sanctions on Russia during his presidency. "Then they accused him of having special ties with Russia, which is complete nonsense," he said.
The Russian leader also does not believe there will be any fundamental changes regarding the conflict in Ukraine, which he predicted will be long.
The fighting cannot stop, Putin said, as long as Kyiv maintains the counter-offensive in the south and east of the country, as it is up to the Ukrainian authorities to stop and "publicly say" that they want to negotiate. Talks to find a solution are not possible if Kyiv does not revoke the presidential decree that prohibits it from negotiating with Russia, Putin assured.
In February 2022, Putin sent the Russian army to Ukraine in the so-called "special military operation". Then began the most serious armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
In Vladivostok, Putin took the opportunity to repeat that the Ukrainian counter-offensive "has failed", a message he has sent several times since the Kyiv government began the counter-attack in June with the aim of expelling Russian troops from the country.
The Ukrainians "have losses, and many", he said. According to Putin, since the start of the counteroffensive, Kyiv has lost 71,500 men in combat.
In addition, the future supplies of Western weapons to the Ukrainian army, cluster bombs and F-16 fighters, will not change anything, according to the Russian leader. They will only "prolong the conflict", he said.
