...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...and his US counterpart Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
have committed to improving relations between the United States and Russia, with Putin saying there was no longer any reason for tensions between the superpowers.
The two leaders met in the Finnish capital Helsinki on Monday to talk about "everything from trade to military to missiles to China".
"There are no objective reasons for difficulties [between Russia and the US]. The Cold War is a thing of the past, the situation in the world has drastically changed," said Putin.
Earlier, Trump blamed his own country's past "foolishness and stupidity" for the two powers' hostile relations.
At a presser following the summit, Trump praised their "direct, open and deeply productive dialogue" and emphasised the need for continued diplomacy over confrontation.
"A productive dialogue is not only good for the United States and good for Russia, but it is good for the world," he said.
"Our relationship has never been worse than it is now, however that changed as of about four hours ago... To refuse to engage would not accomplish anything."