Former US President Donald Trump said in an interview on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the “independence” of the semi-Algerian states in the Donbass was “cool” and that Putin was “very smart”. He also noted that had he been in power, it would have been “out of the question.”

“Yesterday I went and watched on TV, I said: + That’s cool +! Putin announces that a large part of Ukraine is independent. Oh, that’s cool” – said Donald Trump in an interview with conservative radio journalists Clay Travis and Buck Sexton .

“I said: + How smart +. Now he will go there and keep the peace. It will be the strongest peace force. We can use one on our southern border (…) There were more tanks than I have,” said the former US president. He also rated Putin as a “very intelligent man” and knows him “very well”.

Trump also stated that if he were still in office, such a situation would be “out of the question.”

When asked about her comment on Trump’s words, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she was “trying not to take advice from someone who praises President Putin and his military strategy, who has expressed openness to lifting sanctions on Russia in connection with the annexation of Crimea, or who said to the leaders of a group The Seven, Crimea is part of Russia.

They include the demands of Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, against Ukraine Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyal said Tuesday night that resigning from NATO membership and disarmament were inconsistent with the choice of Ukrainian society.

“For an independent and sovereign Ukraine and for me as prime minister of our country, it is impossible to achieve this,” Shmyhal was quoted by the Interfax Ukrainian news agency as saying.

Earlier, the Russian President that the Minsk agreements, the purpose of which was to regulate the situation in the Donbass, were “abandoned”, Which he blamed on the authorities in Kiev. He used the terms “killed” and “perished” for these agreements.

At the same time, he pushed for talks between the Ukrainian authorities and the separatists, which he called one of the conditions for normalization of relations with Ukraine. In his words, Ukraine should also “abandon joining NATO on its own.” He also added, Ukraine should also recognize the vote in Crimea in March 2014, which Russia describes as a referendum, followed by Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.

Putin noted that it is the “most important point” under these circumstances “A significant degree of demilitarization of present-day Ukraine”. In this context, he accused Western countries of handing over weapons to Ukraine.