Obama about Putin: he is “not such a fool”

Фото: Depositphotos

US President Barack Obama negatively answered the question of whether he considers his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to be stupid.

According to the American president, Putin is extremely interested in being seen as an equal partner of the United States, since he is “not such a fool.” Obama recalled that the Russian economy has been shrinking for the third year in a row.

“He understands that Russia’s position in the world has significantly weakened. And the mere fact of invading Crimea or trying to support the Assad regime will not bring him back into the game,” Obama said in an interview with the American publication Atlantic.

He added that all his meetings with Putin were held in a businesslike manner, and the Russian president himself was emphatically polite and extremely frank. “I never have to wait two hours for him like some others,” Obama said.

According to Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin dealt harshly with Ukraine because it was a “client country that was trying to slip out” of Russia's grip.

In an interview, he also made it clear that the United States is not ready to launch a full-scale war over Ukraine, over which, regardless of Washington’s actions, the threat of a military invasion from Russia will always hang.

“The fact is that Ukraine, which is not a NATO member, will be vulnerable to Russian military dominance no matter what we do,” Obama said. In his opinion, this is a completely “realistic position.” “This is an example where we need to be very clear about what our key interests are and what we want to fight for. But at the end of the day, there will always be some ambiguity,” he said.

According to Obama, it is this “ambiguity” that may be the main argument of critics of his foreign policy, since, as the American president himself admitted, he “did not take full advantage of it.” However, Obama does not believe that it is in the US interest to intervene, even if Russia starts another war against a country that is not a NATO member.

“Now, if anyone is considering the possibility that we will go to war against Russia for Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, he should speak out very clearly and understandably. The idea that tough talk or intervention in certain military activities in that region would have any impact on Russian or Chinese decisions flies in the face of all the evidence we've seen over the last 50 years," Obama wrote. Air force.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier, relations between Washington and Moscow deteriorated significantly after Russia annexed the Ukrainian Crimea in March of 2014. In response, the United States and its allies imposed sanctions on individual Russian officials, and then on entire sectors of the Russian economy.

Against this background, the United States and its allies expanded sanctions against Russia, and the presidents of the two countries have not met for two years. The first after a long break meeting passed in New York at the end of September. It discussed mainly the situation in the Middle East.

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