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US President Donald Trump congratulates Vladimir Putin on winning presidential poll

Just Earth News | @justearthnews | 21 Mar 2018

US President Donald Trump congratulates Vladimir Putin on winning presidential poll

Moscow/Washington: US President Donald Trump has congratulated Vladimir Putin over his re-election as Russian President for another term.

As per officials, Trump congratulated his Russian counterpart in a telephone call on Tuesday.

The issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula was also discussed by the two leaders.

"President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The two leaders discussed the state of bilateral relations and resolved to continue dialogue about mutual national security priorities and challenges. President Trump congratulated President Putin on his March 18 re-election, and emphasized the importance of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula," the White House said in a statement.

"The two leaders confirmed the need for the United States and Russia to continue our shared efforts on strategic stability," read the statement.

Russia’s incumbent head of state Vladimir Putin has garnered 76.65 percent of the vote in the March 18 election with 99 percent of the ballots counted, the Central Election Commission was quoted as saying by TASS.

Putin was voted by 55.4 million people in the nation.

In the polls,  Director of the Lenin State Farm Pavel Grudinin, nominated by the Communist Party of Russia, stood in the second position with 11.82 percent of the vote.

He was followed by Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 5.68 percent.

The race also included Ksenia Sobchak, a former reality TV host, and veteran nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky - they got less than 2 percent and about 6 percent respectively, reported BBC.