Trump's envoy Witkoff: Putin is not a 'bad guy', he is a 'great' leader

(Patria) - White House envoy Steve Witkoff praised Vladimir Putin as reliable and said the Russian leader told him he prayed for his 'friend' US President Donald Trump when he was shot at, AFP reported.

Witkoff spent several hours with Putin last week in Moscow and told US media that the talks, which included discussions on paving the way to ending Russia's war in Ukraine, were constructive and 'solution-based'.

In an interview with podcast host Tucker Carlson, Witkoff said he had come to consider Putin not a 'bad guy' and that the Russian president was a 'great' leader who was trying to end Moscow's deadly three-year conflict with Kyiv.

'I liked him. I thought he was sincere with me,' Witkoff said.

'I don't regard Putin as a bad guy. It's a complicated situation, that war and all the ingredients that led to it.'

He described a 'personal' element of the discussion in which Putin recalled his reaction to the assassination attempt on Trump in July 2024 while the Republican was holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Putin 'told me a story... about how, when the president was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed for the president,' Witkoff said.

'Not because he could become president of the United States, but because he had a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend.'

Putin commissioned a 'beautiful portrait of President Trump by a leading Russian artist' and asked the envoy to take it home to Trump, Witkoff added.

'It was such a graceful moment.'

Witkoff's praise for a president long viewed by the United States as an autocratic adversary underscores a dramatic shift in Washington's approach to relations with the Kremlin since Trump took office for his second presidential term.

Witkoff also said that Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy faces difficult choices and that the president should recognize that it is time to 'cut a deal' with Moscow.

Zelenskyy is 'in a very, very difficult situation, but he is up against a nuclear nation,' Witkoff said.

'So, he must know that he will have to back down. Now is the best time for him to strike a deal.'