Putin prayed for Trump after murder attempts, says Special Sent

The special envoy of the White House for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, praised Vladimir Putin by qualifying him as reliable and said that the Russian leader told him that he had prayed for his «friend» US President Donald Trump when he was shot.

AFP

Witkoff met with Putin for several hours last week in Moscow and told US media that the conversations, which included discussions on how to end the Russian war in Ukraine, were constructive and «based on solutions.»

In an interview in the Podcast of the conservative presenter Tucker Carlson, the envoy said that Putin is not a «bad guy» and said that the Russian president is a «great» leader who seeks to end the lethal three -year conflict of Moscow with kyiv.

«I liked. It seemed to me that he was sincere with me, ”said Witkoff in the interview broadcast on Friday.

«I do not consider Putin a bad guy. It is a complex situation, that war and all the factors that caused it, ”he said in conversation with Carlson, who last year interviewed the Russian president.

He also described a «personal» aspect of the conversation, in which Putin recalled his reaction to Trump’s murder attempt in July 2024, while the then republican candidate performed a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Putin told him that «when the president was shot, he went to his local church, met 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 was praying for his friend.»

The Russian president commissioned a portrait of Trump «to an outstanding Russian artist» and asked Witkoff to take him to the US president.

American, Ukrainian and Russian officials are scheduled to hold talks separately in Saudi Arabia to try to agree on a truce in attacks against energy infrastructure of both countries, after three years of Russian offensive that has caused tens of thousands of dead.

Regarding the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, with which President Trump had a tense meeting at the White House recently, the American envoy considered that «he is doing everything he can.»

«It is in a very, very difficult situation (…) This is the best time to reach an agreement,» he said.