So far Trump critics have argued that Putin was counting on a Republican representative's victory, pointing to the alleged favour of the businessman towards Russia.
The president of Russia was besides asked about speculation about the state of wellness of the erstwhile president of the United States. As he said, he is not a doctor, so he does not want to comment on the subject. He only noted that the talk about Biden's wellness arises erstwhile "the U.S. election run is tempoping". He added that akin charges were already circulating during their gathering in Switzerland in June 2021.
"They talked about his inability to work, but I did not announcement anything like that," Putin said.
War? He wanted to defend the Russians.
At the same time, Putin stressed that he considered Biden's administration policy to be wrong. Relations between Russia and the West have reached the lowest level since the Cold War after Putin sent his troops to Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian president argued that he intervened in Ukraine to “protect” Russian people there and to prevent the threat to Russia's security, which is Ukraine's efforts to join NATO.
Putin argued that Moscow was forced to take action after Ukraine and its allies refused to comply with the 2015 agreement to grant greater powers to separatist territories in east Ukraine.
"We can only regret that we did not respond earlier, reasoning we were dealing with decent people," he said.
2% of GDP on defence
Putin was besides asked about Trump's statement, in which he stated that he would not aid countries that do not meet the request to usage 2% of their GDP to defend themselves. Putin replied that this was a U.S. matter, as it defines its function in the alliance. Trump's message represents a sharp contrast to Biden's promise to defend all inch of NATO's territory.
"He has his own view of how relations with allies should develop," Putin said about Trump.
Vladimir Putin noted that something that, from Donald Trump's point of view, makes sense to Europeans may not be logical. In his opinion, Europeans would like the US to proceed to execute certain functions in NATO for free, as Trump is the opponent.
Poland in the lead
Given the current state of defence spending, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey could not presently number on US defence support. Despite all, the Alliance states increased their combined defence spending by almost a 3rd in the last decade, which was a reaction to Russia's first attack on Ukraine in 2014. 10 countries achieved the goal of defending at least 2% of GDP last year, while there were only 2 of them in 2014.
Poland has become the country with the top expenditure in relation to GDP on military equipment and army among all NATO members. According to NATO, almost 4% of GDP is spent on arms. In this year's budget, the government planned defence spending of PLN 118 billion, which represents 3.1% of GDP planned for 2024.
Only 11 NATO associate States spent more than 2% of GDP on defence in 2023. Poland came first in terms of expenditure, even ahead of the USA. pic.twitter.com/dF5wRSPtty
— NOP🧯 NOP🧯 NOP🧯 FUTURE CASE (@Doktul_Bapka) February 13, 2024
