How Trump and Putin really feel about each other

The jury is out on whether Trump’s motto is to keep his friends close, and his enemies closer

When Vladimir Putin was asked whether he had any kompromat on Donald Trump, the then-US president glanced to his left with a beaming smile.

The two men had just finished two hours of closed-door talks in Helsinki, the Finnish capital, in the summer of 2018.

Aides were banished from the room, with only their translators allowed in.

Following the chat, in a public news conference then president Trump was asked whether he believed US intelligence agencies’ allegations of election meddling by the Russians.

With a stoney face, the American said he had no reason to doubt the Russian’s version of events.

“President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” Trump growled at the reporter.

US intelligence agencies had concluded in 2016 that Russia had helped sway the election against Hillary Clinton through a campaign of state-backed cyber hacks and fake news stories.

But it wasn’t the first time Trump had suggested he was more inclined to believe Putin over Western intelligence agencies, although it marked the beginning of the pair’s bromance that, according to some, lasted long after Trump left the White House in 2020.

But Trump was defending the Russian leader way before that.

When Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine using a missile system sent by Moscow in July 2014, Trump a year later said: “It’s disgusting and disgraceful, but Putin and Russia say they didn’t do it.”

And when Trump launched his campaign ahead of the 2016 presidential election, Putin became one of his most vocal, and influential, international backers.

“Putin called me a genius,” Trump told a rally in early 2016, a claim he went on to repeat no fewer than eight times on the campaign trail.

During the then presidential candidate’s major foray into foreign policy, during which he called for better relations with Russia, Moscow’s ambassador Sergey Kislyak sat in the front row.

A few months later in July 2016, Trump said people in Crimea, the peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, appeared to want to remain under the Kremlin’s control.

He did, however, also say Russia would not invade Ukraine if he became president.

It was a trend that continued throughout Trump’s successful campaign and well into his presidency.

While in the White House it was alleged that Trump would frequently go to great lengths to conceal details of his interactions with Putin.

On one occasion he reportedly snatched the minutes of one meeting from an interpreter, instructing them not to discuss what had been said with other officials.

Although they are close, Trump has toed the line when it comes to offering his support to Putin, preferring instead to stick up for the Russian leader when he’s under fire rather than endorse his actions.

In March 2018, he expelled 60 Russian diplomats from the US and shut the country’s consulate in Seattle in retaliation for a Kremlin-backed chemical weapons attack in the United Kingdom.

Trump also approved a Ukrainian request for lethal aid, agreeing to sell $47 million of Javelin anti-tank missiles, which had previously been turned down by Barack Obama in 2014.

Come 2020, the focus on the pair’s relationship faded as Trump lost to Joe Biden.

That was until a new book, released on Tuesday, revived interest in their controversial relationship just weeks before the election.

Almost eight years to the day after American intelligence agencies warned of Russian election meddling in 2016, Bob Woodward, the veteran journalist, reported that they had secretly maintained contact over the last year.

In his book, War, Woodward – the reporter who broke the Watergate scandal – said Trump had spoken to Putin no fewer than seven times since leaving office in 2021.

Some of these discussions came as the American pressured Republican politicians to block military aid to Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion.

The veteran journalist also alleged that Trump had sent Putin American Covid tests for his personal use at the height of the pandemic.

Trump’s campaign dismissed the allegations and branded the book’s author “a total sleazebag”.

But the Kremlin claimed the story about Covid tests was true.

And Trump continues to bring Putin up on the campaign trail, mentioning him dozens of times.

The New York Times recently reported mentions of Putin by Trump have been greater than in any year since when he first became a presidential candidate in 2015.

In recent months, Trump said he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato allies that fail to meet defence spending targets.

He has also repeatedly boasted of having a “very good relationship” with Putin, which would help him broker a deal to end the war in Ukraine if he wins the election.

Trump’s remarks prompted accusations from his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, that he would pressure Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow in exchange for a ceasefire.

Ms Harris said last week that Trump’s courting of Putin was a “sign of weakness,” and Tim Walz, her running mate, has also used Trump and Putin’s alleged relationship as a campaign attack line, saying: “I can guarantee you Kamala Harris and I do not have dictators on speed dial.”

But the jury is out on whether Trump’s motto is to keep his friends close, and his enemies closer.

Some say he is attracted to the power Putin holds, with Mr Woodward suggesting he “loves the autocracy”.

Speaking at a Washington Post event to promote his book, he said: “[Trump] loves the idea that Putin has all of this power, he’s almost envious of it.”

Whether their relationship is a genuine bromance or a marriage of convenience is still to be seen.

What is clear is Trump sees himself as the West’s great disruptor and the only man capable of bringing Putin – a savage, untamable beast – to heel.

But for Western leaders that is a figment of imagination that only exists inside the American’s head.

For them, he’s likely to become a useful idiot for Putin while an axis of evil – China, Russia and Iran – prays on the weaknesses of the democratic West.