FROM ENDORSEMENTS OF Sepp Blatter and Donald Trump to his assessment that the Turkish government is essentially trying to lick the posterior of the USA, Vladimir Putin’s epic end-of-year press conference was, to say the least, a little odd.
The event lasted over three hours, for starters – and there were over 1,300 Russian and foreign journalists listed to attend.
These tweets from The Guardian’s Shaun Walker perhaps best sum up the strange set-up:
News editors around the world didn’t know what to lead with, from the marathon Q&A…
His take on Sepp?
That is someone who should be given the Nobel Peace Prize… His contribution to the global humanitarian sphere is colossal.
On Trump?
He is a very outstanding man, unquestionably talented. It is not up to us to judge his virtue, that is up to US voters, but he is the absolute leader of the presidential race.
Most outlets, in the end, went with his crude attack on the Turkish government…
On the state level, I don’t see any prospects of improving relations with the Turkish leadership. If somebody in the Turkish leadership decided to lick the Americans in one place…I don’t know, if they did the right thing. Firstly, I don’t know if the Americans need this or not.
Putin also insisted that Russia has no regular troops in eastern Ukraine – but admitted that some people have been carrying out military tasks there.
With reporting from AFP.
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