Putin: Russian prostitutes are best in the world

VLADIMIR Putin yesterday accused the Obama administration of trying to undermine Donald Trump, as he attacked claims that Kremlin spies filmed the president-elect with prostitutes.

The Russian leader claimed his country’s prostitutes were ‘best in the world’, but suggested that, as owner of the Miss Universe contest, Mr Trump would not have needed to hire them to perform an alleged ‘perverted’ act in Moscow in 2013.

‘He’s a grown-up for a start and secondly a man who spent his whole life organising beauty contests and meeting the most beautiful women in the world,’ Mr Putin said. ‘I can hardly imagine he ran off to a hotel to meet our girls of “lowered social responsibility” though they are, of course, the best in the world.’

In his first public comments on the allegations by an ex-MI6 agent that Russia amassed compromising information to blackmail Mr Trump, the Russian president called the report an ‘obvious fabrication’.

He insisted his government had no idea in 2013 of the tycoon’s political ambitions and accused the Obama administration, which is investigating the dossier’s claims, of trying to undermine Mr Trump’s legitimacy. Those responsible for spreading such ‘fake news’ were ‘worse than prostitutes’, Mr Putin said. The Russian leader’s defence of Mr Trump came as polls found the Republican has the lowest approval rating for an incoming president in more than 40 years.

Separate polls for the Washington Post and CNN show just 40 per cent of adult Americans view him favourably – more than 20 points behind the three most recent presidents and at least 44 points below Barack Obama when he entered the White House in 2009.

Possible reasons include controversy over many of his cabinet selections, public feuding with the media, and the unvetted dossier. Mr Trump dismissed the polls as ‘rigged’.