MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked his US counterpart Donald Trump on Sunday for the CIA’s help in thwarting a planned attack in Saint Petersburg, the second time in a week that the leaders have exchanged praise. Putin also pledged that Russian security agencies would pass on any information received about terrorist threats to the United States and its citizens. Police confiscated a large number of explosives used to make homemade bombs, automatic rifles, munitions and extremist literature, it said. In 2015, Russian security services estimated that 2,900 Russian citizens had joined the jihadist group, as well as several thousand Central Asians. “The Trump that you see on TV is very different than the real Trump,” Putin told reporters at the time.

Source: New Strait Times December 17, 2017 20:48 UTC