Trump now denies knowing Putin -- but he fawned over him as 'just so nice' in a 2014 interview

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in recent days has denied ever meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin -- despite the fact that he's publicly bragged about meeting Putin in the past.

And now a 2014 Fox News interview flagged by @RobPulseNews shows Trump positively fawning over Putin's leadership while praising his invasion of Ukraine as "so smart."

"So smart, when you see the riots in [Ukraine] because they're hurting the Russians, okay, we're going to take it over," he said. "He's really going step by step by step, and you have to give him a lot of credit."

But that's not all: Trump then boasted about how wonderful Putin was during Trump's recent trip to Moscow, where he was overseeing a Miss Universe pageant.

"We just left Moscow, he could not have been nicer," Trump gushed. "He was so nice, and so everything. But you have to give him credit."

Check out the full video of Trump swooning over Putin below.