Putin makes teasing claim of support for Kamala Harris, calling her laugh 'infectious'

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Ukraine’s gamble to seize his country's territory has backfired by boosting his own military's advance, a boast he paired with a teasing claim of support for Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. election.

Speaking at an economic forum in the far-eastern city of Vladivostok on Thursday, he said it was the “sacred duty” of the Russian army to do everything to “throw the enemy out” of the border region of Kursk and protect its citizens after last month's stunning assault.

Yet, Putin also said that Moscow's main goal remained capturing the Donbas region, Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland where Russian troops have been pushing forward for months.

The goal of the Kursk operation was to make Russia “nervous and fidgety,” Putin said, forcing Moscow to transfer troops from key areas of the battlefield and stop its advance, particularly in the Donbas — composed of the neighboring Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

“Were they successful?” Putin asked rhetorically about Ukraine's offensive. “No. The enemy has failed.”

In fact, the Russian army had “stabilized the situation” and started to gradually “squeeze out” the Ukrainians from border areas, he said, while his troops in the Donbas were now advancing not by hundreds of meters but “square kilometers.”

Putin's ebullient mood matched Ukraine's own confidence with developments on the battlefield, after a cross-border assault that turned the tables on the Kremlin.

Kyiv claims it’s very much still in control of the nearly 500 square miles of Russian territory and 100 settlements it has seized there. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News in an exclusive interview earlier this week that he plans to hold this land for as long as needed to end the war.

But Putin suggested he was comfortable with the events of the past month.

“Having transferred into our border regions its rather large and well-prepared units, the enemy has weakened itself in the key areas and our troops have accelerated our offensive operations,” he said.

Ukraine's manpower struggles mean it will soon have to resort to recruiting young people, he claimed — like Nazi Germany did during World War II with its youth force, known as Hitlerjugend.

“I sometimes get the impression that those who lead Ukraine are some kind of aliens or foreigners,” Putin added. “The next step is to call on students and so on, to completely bleed the country out,” he said. “I repeat once again, it seems that these are not their people.”

The Russian leader has repeatedly and baselessly labeled Ukrainian leaders Nazis — including Zelenskyy, who is Jewish.

'Supporting’ Harris

Asked about the upcoming U.S. election, Putin said it was ultimately “the choice of the American people” but claimed that Russia backed Harris, the Democratic nominee.

His tongue-in-cheek intervention comes less than 24 hours after the Justice, State and Treasury departments announced sanctions and criminal charges in what the Biden administration said were Russian government-sponsored attempts to manipulate U.S. public opinion ahead of the November vote.

“I told you, our favorite, if I may say so, was the current president, Mr. Biden,” Putin said with a smirk on his face. “He was removed from the race, but he advised all his supporters to support Ms. Harris. So we will do it as well, we will root for her,” he said, to applause from the audience.

“Secondly, she has such an expressive and infectious laugh that it means she is doing well,” Putin said, speaking of Harris.

“And if she is doing well, then … Trump introduced so many restrictions and sanctions against Russia, like no other president had ever introduced before him. And if Ms. Harris is doing well, perhaps she will refrain from doing anything like that,” he said.

The comments, dripping with sarcasm, will likely be dismissed by the White House and the Harris campaign. Former President Donald Trump is widely seen as the Kremlin's preferred candidate. Trump has often been complimentary of Putin and has promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, raising concerns that he would force Kyiv into a peace agreement on Russia's terms.