Special to WorldTribune.com
The budding friendship between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin apparently hit a pothole on March 16.
The Kremlin has said that a new campaign video from the GOP front-runner “demonizes” Russia.
The video shows Putin throwing an opponent to the floor in a judo match, followed by a clip of him laughing, which is shown after a clip of Hillary Clinton barking like a dog.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who had viewed the video, said he was not sure if Putin had seen it, but added “our attitude is negative.”
“It’s an open secret for us that demonizing Russia and whatever is linked to Russia is unfortunately a mandatory hallmark of America’s election campaign,” Peskov said. “We always sincerely regret this and wish the (U.S.) electoral process was conducted without such references to our country.”
Sky News Russia Correspondent John Sparks said the reaction seemed to “cut across the grain” of the “Trump-Putin story so far. Both men have been complimenting each other over the past few month.”
During the campaign, Trump “has talked about his desire to have good relations with Russia, he has complimented Putin as a strong leader and he sent out positive tweets about Putin as well,” Sparks said.
“Vladimir Putin has complimented Donald Trump back: at an annual press conference just before Christmas, Putin described Trump as a very colorful and intelligent man, and that sort of mood music has been picked up by the Russian state media here.
“Clearly, for Trump and his team, being seen to be too close to Russia, to Vladimir Putin, they have twigged that’s an electoral liability and they’re trying to move back somewhat.”
Trump campaign video ‘demonizes’ Russia, Kremlin says added by Editor One on
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