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RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR Putin has thanked his US counterpart Donald Trump for the CIA’s help in thwarting a planned attack in Saint Petersburg, the second time in a week that the leaders have exchanged praise.
Putin spoke by phone with Trump to convey his gratitude for intelligence supplied by the CIA which allowed Russia’s FSB security service to break up a “terrorist cell” that was planning attacks in Russia’s second city, according to the Kremlin.
“The information received by the CIA was enough to detect, hunt down and arrest the criminals,” it added in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
Putin also pledged that Russian security agencies would pass on any information received about terrorist threats to the United States and its citizens.
The White House said the foiled attack could have killed “large numbers of people”.
It stressed that the cooperation “serves as an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together”.
The FSB announced on Friday it had arrested seven members of an Islamic State group cell that had been planning a suicide bombing and “the killing of citizens” in crowded areas of Saint Petersburg on 16 December.
On alert ahead of World Cup
Police confiscated a large number of explosives used to make homemade bombs, automatic rifles, munitions and extremist literature, it said.
On Tuesday, FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov said Russia was on alert for the possible return of jihadists from Syria ahead of the World Cup and the presidential election in 2018.
Russia has suffered several attacks this year, including a bombing on the Saint Petersburg metro in April that left 14 people dead.
The threat of attack has increased since Moscow’s military intervention in Syria in September 2015 to support President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, making Russia a priority IS target.
As many as 40,000 fighters travelled from all over the world, including Russia, to join IS in Syria after the 2014 declaration of its self-styled “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq.
In 2015, Russian security services estimated that 2,900 Russian citizens had joined the jihadist group, as well as several thousand Central Asians.
In a phone call on Thursday, Trump and Putin discussed the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear programme, and the US leader took the unusual step of thanking his Russian opposite number for hailing the American economy.
The pair have lavished praise on each other in the past, with commentators describing their cosy relationship as a “bromance”.
Diplomatic ties still fraught
But diplomatic ties between Washington and Moscow are still fraught, with both expelling some of each other’s diplomats in September and the US designation last month of Russia’s English-language news channel RT as a “foreign agent.”
Nonetheless, “President Trump appreciated the call and told President Putin that he and the entire United States intelligence community were pleased to have helped save so many lives,” the White House said.
President Trump stressed the importance of intelligence cooperation to defeat terrorists wherever they may be.
He then called CIA Director Mike Pompeo to “congratulate him, his very talented people, and the entire intelligence community on a job well done!” the statement added.
At his annual press conference this week, Putin said allegations of Russian interference in last year’s US election had been “made up by people who are opposed to Trump so as to delegitimize his work”.
The two leaders met in July on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Germany, after which Trump said he “accepted” Putin’s assurance that Moscow did not meddle in the vote.
“The Trump that you see on TV is very different than the real Trump,” Putin told reporters at the time. “There is every reason to believe that we will be able to at least partially re-establish the level of cooperation that we need.”
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Remember the day, an article praising Trump on the journal.
@Shaun Gallagher: You’re missing the point. The boss is giving the lackey a pat on the head.
@Shaun Gallagher: A day that will live on infamy.
@Shaun Gallagher: not the article. Putin thanking his pal
@Shaun Gallagher: it was the CIA that discovered the plot Trump was only relaying it to his boss.
Quick, call the Feds, Collusion. :/
Nice to see a story about two countries who used to be enemies working together to defeat evil and the prevent the untimely loss of innocent lives.
@Patric Cooney: haha yeah they work so well together. Russia will bring trump down
@Michael Farrelly: Democrat in White House and some drunk puppet in Kremlin is the only decent option for the world !!
@Michael Farrelly: well whoever replaces Trump at whatever stage I hope they continue to exchange information like this. This shouldn’t be viewed as a way to have a pop shot at Trump, it should be seen as the forces of common sense and the greater good working to save lives.
Credit where credit is due and well done to all parties involved.
Well done all round
Does Trump trust the CIA ?
@You’re beautiful 2018:
It’s only the FBI he doesn’t trust. But he trusted them a short while back. I think. I’m not sure, he changes his mind so often.
@Avina Laaf: didn’t he doubt every single intelligence agency in America for quite a while?
This is the way it should be.I hope they can improve things further.For all our sakes.
@gerry fallon: don’t be so naive
That is sooo cute and warms the cockles like a pink fluffy unicorn. Warning eachother for the groups they themselves helped to cultivate and turn into geopolitical tools. Responsible and caring governers on both sides. Where do you see this hunger for peace and cooperation on the world stage these days. #peacewillcomeinourlives
@Wodanaz von Mises: An alternative way to warm the cockles would be to elect Hilary Clinton. The heat from those thermonuclear ICBMs is just incandescent just like her tantrums. She would push those massive NATO battalions from Poland straight into Moscow at the first of her legendary rages with the failure of regime change in Syria or the failure to force Russia out from their long established Crimean naval base.
@Ranty McCrank: Yeah, instead of the warmonger Clinton who would presumably lead the world into some kind of hilariously exaggerated doomsday scenario, there’s a dullard in the oval office who thinks Putin is somebody you should be good mates with.
I for one am *thrilled* that such a daft, unhinged character is commander in chief of the US forces… much safer hands, right?
@Ranty McCrank: Possibly, remote but possible yes. These games are usually not played ‘directly’ like that, but with more nuances, sneaky, by proxies. Can be nice to dream and think about the ‘what ifs’ at times. Not very useful or practical in majority of cases, but sure. And at the end of the day they are all different sides of the same grubby bloodstained coin. No matter how many ‘nice’ PR moments they create and orchestrate.
@Ranty McCrank: how well you chose your name.
@Ranty McCrank: still can’t even spell her name properly. Poor.
@The Rev Ndabaningi Sithole: wasn’t that a UN decision? Also, didn’t it save thousands of lives?
@Ranty McCrank: you believe all the Russian propaganda too ?
@Michael Farrelly: when applying motive and logic then I would definitely believe the Russian over the western propaganda. 30 years of bullshirt and ye guys are still believing? That’s a special type of loyalty.
Trump would have been furious if he didn’t get his thank you. He’s a real adult like that.
Intelligence services solve and prevent cross border incidents every day, yet other leaders are sitting by the phone with their press secretary waiting for the gratitude to flow in.
It’s good to have peaceful and productive relations between the United States and Russia. Well done, Trump and Putin.
@John Reid: hostility and war between Russia and the US is more desirable for many people here. Unbelievable.
The Trump you see on TV is very different to the real Trump? Thanks be to Jehovah! It would be the death of watersports otherwise.
“Just doing my job sir!”
Got your back brah
I wouldn’t have let Putin know.
have your say