Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited President Donald Trump to Moscow, as long as there are “necessary conditions,” he said Friday.
“We are ready for such meetings, we are ready to invite President Trump to Moscow. He has this invitation already and I told him about it,” Putin said while speaking at a summit in Johannesburg, CNN reported.
Russian President Putin says he is “ready” to go to Washington and has invited US President Trump to Moscow https://t.co/QLegnUB7qZ pic.twitter.com/FM0TBZ9jT4
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 27, 2018
The White House has not confirmed Putin’s invitation yet.
#BREAKING: Putin invites Trump to meet in Moscow https://t.co/GExwZwclk8 pic.twitter.com/c0bmqctnEA
— The Hill (@thehill) July 27, 2018
Putin also praised President Trump while speaking at the summit.
“You can critique him for what he does and many people do that but one thing is clear – he is willing to fulfill his campaign promises,” Putin said, adding that Trump’s “great virtue is that he always wants to keep his promises to his voters.”
Putin said their meeting earlier this month in Helsinki, Finland, was “useful.” Trump and Putin met privately for more than two hours before they held a bilateral meeting and joint press conference.
Both leaders characterized the meeting as successful, and Trump has said that having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing for the United States.
The White House earlier this week announced that Putin would not visit Washington, D.C., until 2019. Trump had previously extended an invitation to Putin to visit this fall, but this week officials said the meeting is pushed back due to special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.
“The President believes that the next bilateral meeting with President Putin should take place after the Russia witch hunt is over, so we’ve agreed that it will be after the first of the year,” said National Security Advisor John Bolton, the Washington Post reported.
