When the cards were on the table in the Kremlin, a man who has marketed himself as a great Putin expert for many years spoke up in America: Donald Trump.

In an email to his supporters, the former president reiterated that he knows the Russian president "very well" and that Putin would never have dared to do this when he was in the White House.

As President, Trump had done his best to protect Russia from sanctions, even if he had to bow to pressure from a Congress that was almost closed on the matter.

But now he blasphemed about the “insignificant” punitive measures taken by the Biden administration.

They couldn't stop Putin from taking over "a massive chunk of strategically located land."

Putin is now getting "what he always wanted" and is getting richer because of the high oil prices.

Andrew Ross

Responsible editor for news and politics online.

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Even more admiration came through in a radio interview.

Trump told how he saw what Putin was doing on TV on Monday and how he thought: "That's brilliant!" Declaring such a "big piece of Ukraine" independent - "how clever that is!" Particularly impressed The Republican commented on Putin's announcement that he would send "peacekeeping troops" to eastern Ukraine.

"We could use something like that on our southern border," said Trump, who is flirting with another presidential nomination in 2024.

"This is the strongest peacekeeping force I've ever seen.

I've never seen so many army tanks.

They will keep the peace!”

Trump later complained in another email that the "fake news media" were concealing his request to Germany not to enter into a "gas pipeline deal" with Russia.

In reality, this was reported no less extensively in America than in Germany;

most politicians from both parties agreed with Trump on the matter.

To be on the safe side, however, Trump linked an article from 2018 with the title: "Trump slams Germany down over the Russian pipeline and calls it a 'terrible mistake'." The text was published on the page of the Russian state broadcaster RT.

The response to Trump's statements remained manageable in the United States.

America has become accustomed to Trump praising the authoritarian Putin to the skies on the one hand and proclaiming on the other that he stopped him.

For Trump, this is not a contradiction.

He could hardly praise Chinese head of state Xi Jinping enough as president.

His logic: Only he, Trump, is devious enough to deal with those types who don't follow the rules, but subordinate everything to their own interests.

Only a minority supports Putin

Trump's open admiration for Putin still distinguishes him from most of his party's elected officials.

But his Russia policy has left deep scars at the grassroots level.

According to a Gallup poll, by 2018, after a year and a half of Trump's presidency, the proportion of Republican supporters who viewed Russia as an ally or friend of America had almost doubled, from 22 percent in 2014 to 40 percent.

A few days after the poll was published, Trump met Putin in Helsinki and, after a long conversation without an adviser, defended him against the accusation that he had interfered in the American elections - an accusation that America's secret services already considered to be proven.