'Messianic Belief in Himself': Hillary Clinton on Putin's War in Ukraine

She also said that a re-elected Donald Trump would have withdrawn the US from NATO.

Hillary Clinton. 

(Photo: Twitter/@dianejeffersonc)

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state for the United States, said on Thursday, 2 June, that Russian President Vladimir Putin has an "almost messianic belief in himself," The Guardian reported.

The 2016 US presidential election candidate was speaking to an audience at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts.

She added, "Putin does not like critics, especially women critics. Putin then became very adversarial toward me with few exceptions. As we know, despite efforts to say to the contrary, he worked very hard to get Trump elected through all kinds of means."

Clinton was referring to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. The Senate Intelligence Committee had found that the Russian government had engaged in an "extensive campaign" to sabotage the election in Trump's favor.

"When he invaded Ukraine I was sadly not surprised. I was very pleasantly surprised at how effective the government of [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and Ukraine defended themselves," she said.

Saying that a re-elected Trump would have withdrawn the US from NATO, she asserted that the war in Ukraine confirmed "a need to keep the institutions we have and try to make them more effective for the future".

(With inputs from The Guardian.)