Former United States President George W. Bush considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be "a smart and tactical" politician with a "very strong personality."
This view was expressed in an interview with Fox Business by the 71-year-old American politician, who in 2001 had said the famous phrase that went down in history that "I looked Putin in the eye and saw in his soul."
"At that moment when I said that I looked him in the eyes and saw in his soul, Russia had run aground. "Then the price of oil went up and Putin changed," said George W. Bush.
In his view, Vladimir Putin is a "smart and tactical" politician, but for the United States, the problem is that the Russian president always seeks to defend his country's interests at the expense of American interests. "On most issues he has the following approach: he says I'm ready to win and the United States to lose," George W. Bush said in an interview.
Referring to the personality of the Russian president, George W. Bush said that "he has a very strong personality", but as he said he is making significant efforts "to restore Soviet influence, even though the Soviet Union no longer exists." "That's why I always believed that the United States should be very persistent when it comes to Putin, not belligerent, but persistent," Bush said, adding that "Vladimir Putin should not be underestimated."