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Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday praised Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine to support Russian-backed separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. In on the right-wing talk radio program "The Buck Sexton Show," Trump broke his conspicuous silence on the crisis to applaud the Russian dictator.
"This is genius," he said of Putin's decision on Monday to officially recognize the breakaway provinces and authorize the use of Russian military personnel to assist them. "So Putin is now saying it’s independent — a large section of Ukraine. I said, how smart is that? And he’s gonna go in and be a peacekeeper. We could use that on our southern border. That’s the strongest peace force I’ve ever seen. There were more army tanks than I’ve ever seen. They’re gonna keep peace, all right."
Trump is a long-standing fan of Putin's. In 2013, he wondered on Twitter if the Russian autocrat would attend his Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and whether the two would become "best friends." Putin did not show up. In the following years, Trump of Putin's strategic acumen, noted the strongman's intention to "re-build the Russian Empire" and defended Putin's habit of killing dissidents and journalists, arguing that the United States does the same thing.