President Putin officially responds to President Trump's statement that Russia is a 'paper tiger'

The Russian Federation's RT channel said on the evening of October 2, local time, that in a statement on the same day, the country's President, Mr. Vladimir Putin, said that US President Donald Trump's recent description of the Russian Federation as a "paper tiger" may have been said in a "sarcastic" sense.

Responding to Valdai Discussion Club moderator Fyodor Lukyanov's humorous suggestion that the Russian President should give his US counterpart a real paper tiger as a gift, Putin said: “No, we have our own relationship; we know what to give each other.”

The Russian leader added: “I don’t know the context in which it was made – maybe it was said sarcastically,” and joked: “Just try to confront this paper tiger.”

Earlier on September 23, in a post on the Truth Social platform after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump said that "Mr. Putin and the Russian Federation are in big economic trouble, and this is the time for Ukraine to act."

In the post, Mr. Trump made a marked change in tone, calling the Russian Federation a “paper tiger,” arguing that it had failed to defeat Ukraine over the past three and a half years.

The US president also said he believed Kiev “is in a position to fight and take back all of Ukraine” lost to Russia, which now occupies about a fifth of the country, as long as the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continue to support it.

Contrary to the US President's comments, according to RT, the Russian Federation army has been continuously advancing on all fronts over the past several months.

At the end of September, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported that Russian forces had taken control of 4,700 km² and 205 settlements this year.

Before Mr. Putin, on September 24, according to the British news agency Reuters, Moscow also declared that its economy was stable and the army was advancing in Ukraine, rejecting comments from US President Donald Trump, who called on Kiev to take advantage of the economic weakness of the Russian Federation to regain all occupied territories.

In an interview with RBC Radio, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the US leader's comments stemmed from his recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“Of course, President Trump heard Mr. Zelensky’s version of events. And it is clear that at this point it is this version that is the reason for the assessment we have just heard,” the Kremlin spokesman said.

Mr Peskov asserted that the Russian Federation's military was making progress in Ukraine, where he said they were advancing with deliberate caution.

“This is of course a question for our armed forces, but in general – and the President (Putin) has repeatedly stressed – we are moving very cautiously to minimize losses… (and) not to weaken our strike potential. These are very deliberate actions,” Mr. Peskov said.

According to the Kremlin spokesman, this development shows that “for those who do not want to negotiate now, their position will be even worse tomorrow and the days after”.

Mr. Peskov also brushed aside President Trump's comment that the Russian Federation was a “paper tiger,” saying that the Russian Federation was a bear, not a tiger, and “there is no such thing as a paper bear.”

“The Russian Federation remains resilient. The Russian Federation maintains macroeconomic stability,” Mr. Peskov affirmed, adding: “It is true that the Russian Federation is experiencing a number of tensions and problems in many economic sectors, which are inevitably linked to the numerous restrictions, sanctions ... that we face, along with global economic fluctuations. Not only sanctions”./.