All news

Czech president lauds Putin as strong political personality, saying only ‘fools’ deny it

Speaking about the development of the Russian political system and Vladimir Putin’s next moves, Zeman speculated that Putin has three options he can choose from in the upcoming years
President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic
President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman
© AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic

PRAGUE, January 20. /TASS/. On Sunday, in an interview with the Frekvence 1 radio station, President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong politician, pointing out that nobody denies this.

"President Putin is undoubtedly a strong political personality," the Czech president said. "Aside from a couple of fools, nobody refuted this. By the way, [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel has visited him recently in Moscow again. And she did so for the 15th time, if I’m not mistaken."

Speaking about the development of the Russian political system and Vladimir Putin’s next moves, Zeman speculated that Putin has three options he can choose from in the upcoming years.

"The first option is to switch between offices again: one time as president and one time as the premier, just like before with [Vice Chairman of the Security Council, ex-Prime Minister Dmitry] Medvedev. The second [option] is a bit wild: there have long been talks about the existence of some state union between Russia and Belarus and that Vladimir Putin could become a president of this union, but it appears that Belarusian President [Alexander] Lukashenko does not favor this too much. A new option has surfaced recently, [which involves] the creation of the State Council, and Vladimir Putin could become its chairman," Zeman believed.

He disclosed that he "got along fairly well" with ex-Prime Minister Medvedev, but noted that he once had to discuss a controversial Russian media article regarding the 1968 events in then-Czechoslovakia during one of their personal meetings.