Putin on Trump: Criminal charges are politically motivated

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the four separate criminal cases against former U.S. President Donald Trump are politically motivated.

“Everything that is happening with Trump, this is persecution for political reasons of one’s political rival,” Putin said at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, state-owned news agency Ria Novosti reported.

Putin said the cases against the former American president show “the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”

Trump, who faced scrutiny over his personal ties to Russia during his time in the White House, in April became the first U.S. president or former president to be indicted.

Since then, he has been charged in four different criminal cases in the U.S., for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and election interference in the state of Georgia, but also over hush payments he allegedly made to a porn actress, and for hoarding classified documents at his personal residence in Florida.

In the same remarks, Putin went on to praise billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who he described as an “active, talented businessman” and “an outstanding person.” In recent days, Musk has been under fire for purportedly thwarting a planned Ukrainian drone strike on Russian-occupied Crimea.