Steve Witkov, a special envoy group in the Trump administration, said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was injured after an attempted assassination during last year's presidential election, prayed for President Trump.
Talk to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson PodcastsWitkov said Putin spoke to him about his reaction to the attack on Trump in a meeting with the Russian leader in Moscow.
The envoy visited Russia twice to discuss the details surrounding negotiations on the Ukrainian conflict.
“When the president was shot, he [Putin] I went to his local church, met with his priests and prayed for the president,” Witkov said.
According to Witkov, Putin has “friendship” with the president. “He was praying for his friend,” Witkov said.
Last July, then-presidential candidate Trump was addressing a rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, when he was injured by a bullet fired by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Witkov added that Trump was “clearly touched” when Putin told him he prayed for him after the shooting.
“I don't think of Putin as a bad guy. It's the complicated situation, that war and all the material that led to it,” Witkov told the podcast.
US and Russian officials are scheduled to hold a meeting in Saudi Arabia next week and resume bilateral talks.
Earlier this month, Putin said he was accepting a 30-day ceasefire, as proposed by the US, but he proposed vague terms for his support, such as wanting to eliminate “the cause of this crisis.”
Ukraine recently agreed to support the framework in consultations with the US. The Trump administration has since tried to get Russia to sign on.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters following the meeting that Putin received Witkov on the evening of March 13th, and that “additional signals” regarding the Kremlin's position had been reported to Trump.
