BREAKING: Putin says he deeply respects Trump, whom he describes as a courageous person who’s trying to do the right thing by bringing about world peace.

“I believe he truly wants peace in Ukraine and the Middle East, though it may be harder than he expected.”

PUTIN:

“I deeply respect the current American President. He’s traveled a very long and difficult path. There were hardships along the way on his way to the White House. You know that he survived two attempts on his life. He’s a very courageous person, that’s for sure.

As for what he is doing within the country, within the United States, or when it comes to the Middle East and his efforts there to achieve peace, for example, in the Ukraine crisis, we value that a lot. And let me say that publicly again, like I’ve said before, President Trump, I believe, sincerely wants to achieve peace in Ukraine.

Just recently, he said it’s more difficult than he had believed before. Well, that’s true and it’s to be expected because it’s one thing when you look at something from the outside, and something different when you actually deal with it. And the same goes for the Middle Eastern matter, although over there, I think he had much more experience. He was more involved in the Middle East before, but it’s difficult there as well because real life is always difficult—it’s more difficult than what you initially believe.

But personally, I’m always open to any contacts, to any meetings, and I know that President Trump has said on multiple occasions that we could meet. But I personally think this is something you need to prepare for because as a result of such a meeting, we need to achieve some kind of new level of partnership.

But overall, thanks to President Donald Trump, relations between Russia and the United States are starting to finally get better in some respects. Of course, we still have issues diplomatically, but the first steps are there. We’re moving forward. We have contacts between our major agencies, between the State Department and our Foreign Ministry, between our special services, which is really important, you know, because it’s really critical to be able to fight terrorism, whatever the situation is, whatever the environment is.

And in other areas too, we have very good prospects in terms of economic development, economic partnership. I know that American businesses are really willing to—they are sending signals that they would like to go back to our markets, and we will welcome that, but that requires dialogue.

But overall, like I said, that meeting is quite possible and we certainly would like to see that.”