This Article is From Dec 23, 2016

Vladimir Putin Says Nobody Believed Donald Trump Would Win 'Except Us'

Vladimir Putin Says Nobody Believed Donald Trump Would Win 'Except Us'

A large part of Republican voters support the Russian president said Vladimir Putin. (AFP)

Moscow: Russia's President Vladimir Putin said Friday that US President-elect Donald Trump accurately read the popular mood in the United States to win the election, although "nobody except us" believed in his success.

The US president-elect "precisely felt the mood of the society and worked in that precise paradigm, he went to the end, though nobody believed that he would win except us," Putin said while answering a state media journalist at his annual press conference.

Asked what he thought about support among some Americans for him, Putin said "I don't put it down to me, the fact that a large part of Republican voters support the Russian president."

"It means that a large part of the American people have the same idea of how the world should be, of our common dangers and problems," he said.

"It's good that there are people that sympathise with us in our concept of traditional values," he said, and it may be a good starting point in "building relations" between the United States and Russia.

Russia and Putin has been accused by Washington of meddling in the US elections but the Kremlin leader broadly dismissed this as attempts by the election losers to save face.

Putin accused the outgoing US administration and more widely the Democrats of blaming their misfortunes on outside factors like Russia.

The US Democratic party have lost not just the presidential election, but also in the Senate and Congress, Putin said. "Was that also our doing?"

"They are losing on all fronts and are looking for the guilty party on the side," he said. "That's beneath their dignity. You have to lose with dignity."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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