Russian President Vladimir Putin has softened his rhetoric about the United States in an annual speech, expressing a desire to mend ties and work together in Syria once Donald Trump takes office.
“We are ready to cooperate with the new American administration,” the Russian president said in his state of the nation address to an assembly of lawmakers and officials. “It’s important to normalise and start to develop our bilateral relations on an equal and mutually beneficial basis.”
US-Russian ties have been frigid following sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis and support for Syrian rebels fighting Russia’s ally Bashar al-Assad. But Trump has praised Putin’s leadership saying it would be “nice” to work with him to defeat the Islamic State, and in their first conversation after the election, Putin appeared to emphasise the potential for cooperation.
Putin returned to the theme in his speech on Thursday: “Of course I am counting on joining forces with the United States in the fight with the real, not made-up, threat of international terrorism,” he said.
He added that thanks to the bombing campaign in Syria, where Russia and Assad’s forces are engaged in a bloody push to take Aleppo, “terrorists have been dealt a palpable blow”.
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