MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. The statement by the patriarch of American diplomacy and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger in which he called Russian President Vladimir Putin "a character" out of a Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, was appreciated by the Kremlin as a "positive story", Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"Kissinger knows our country really well, he knows our writers and our philosophers so such comparisons from him are quite positive," Peskov said commenting on Kissinger’s interview with CBS News.
Peskov added that Kissinger "understands Russia’s affairs well, that doesn’t mean that he agrees with Russia on everything but at least he has deep knowledge, not superficial."
The Kremlin spokesman added that Putin and Kissinger "have quite long, warm relations, they take advantage of each opportunity to informally exchange views on bilateral relations and global agenda."
Peskov also said that Putin had not seen this interview yet.
According to media reports, during the interview Henry Kissinger was asked to share his opinion of Putin since he had met with the Russian leader many times. In response to the question, Kissinger called Putin a "character out of Dostoyevsky." "He is a man with a great sense of connection, an inward connection, to Russian history as he sees it," Kissinger remarked. "He is a cold calculator of the Russian national interest, as he conceives it, and which he believes, probably correctly, has some very unique features," the former secretary of state added.