Putin
© Russia InsiderA giant among men.
Putin is on a roll today.

During a panel discussion with CNBC's Geoff Cutmore, Icelandic President Gudni Johannesson and Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, Putin explained a subtle difference between U.S. and Russia policymaking: "We never do stupid things that would harm us. We never shoot ourselves in the foot."

Putin then gracefully pointed out that Obama damaged the U.S. and European economies in an attempt to undermine Russia.

Russia does not behave in such a way.

So simple. Yet so profound.

Putin's comments were made at the at the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk on Thursday:
Cutmore: One of my views actually sent a question for this discussion — an American. And he said, 'If you take further consequences against the Americans over sanctions, would you stop giving them rockets so that they could get to the space station?'

Putin: We would never do that. You know? Like a guy buys a ticket but doesn't ride the train. We never do stupid things that would harm us. We never shoot ourselves in the foot.

The U.S. buys our rocket engines, and this way they are able to save money, taxpayer dollars, which they can then use to build their own plants. And we are also happy because this provides contracts for our plants.

We never do things that would harm our business, or bilateral ties — we are not going to do anything like that in this case, either.

The fact that the previous U.S. administration took this step — I think this damaged the U.S. economy, the American people, and then the Obama administration forced the Europeans to do the same, and this damaged the European economy, made it less competitive. And they lost hundreds of thousands of jobs.
It was fun watching Cutmore meekly nod in shame as Putin talked some sense to these dopes.