President Donald Trump's rant about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being a "dictator" sent outraged shockwaves throughout European capitals this week, although one country found itself pleasantly surprised by the president's tirade.
Politico reports that "the Kremlin seemed barely to believe its luck" when Trump raged against Ukraine while his administration was negotiating directly with Russian officials as Ukraine watched from the sidelines.
In fact, Russian officials are openly crowing about the fact that Trump is reciting their own talking points.
"If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the U.S. president, I would have laughed out loud," boasted Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev. "Donald Trump is 200 percent right."
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov similarly gushed that Trump seemed to be the first president in American history to take Russia's side.
"He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO," he said. "No Western leaders had ever said that, but he had said it several times. This is already a signal that he understands our position."