Vladimir Putin wants Donald Trump to destroy Hillary Clinton ‘because she once ordered Barack Obama to snub and insult the Russian leader’
The Democratic nominee and the Russian hardman have butted heads for years
PUTIN is backing Trump to win the US election next week because of all the times she has insulted the strongman Russian leader - including the time she told Obama to SNUB him.
US spies are investigating whether the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton campaign emails were unearthed by hackers associated with the Kremlin.
Putin and Trump appear to have a warm relationship and Putin has been accused of trying to influence the US election.
Now a former US ambassador to Moscow has said that the Russian president holds a grudge against the Republican nominee.
Michael McFaul told : "She has policies and a history that the Russians don't like.
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"It's frequently forgotten because there's so much noise about Trump and Putin. But this history is real, and Putin doesn't forget these things."
In her 2014 autobiography, she recalls telling Obama: "Don't appear too eager to work together. Don't flatter Putin with high-level attention.
"If Putin is restrained and doesn't push beyond Crimea into eastern Ukraine it will not be because he has lost his appetite for more power, territory and influence."
She also called him "thin-skinned and autocratic".
Putin recently said Clinton demonises Russia as "an enemy (to) unite the nation against them" and "to distract voters from the country’s problems."
He added: "Jeopardising Russian-American relations in order to gain brownie points internally – I consider this to be harmful and counter productive.
"It’s not funny anymore. If somebody out there wants confrontation… This is not our choice but this means that there will be problems."
Trump, however, Putin called: "A colourful and talented man" and said: "Mr Trump has declared that he’s ready for the full restoration of Russian-American relations.
"Is there anything bad there? We all welcome this."
Clinton began her time as secretary of state by offering to 'reset' American and Russian relations, but publicly criticised the Russian strongman leader over alleged vote-rigging and Putin's support for Syrian tyrant President Bashar al-Assad.
She painted a grim picture of life under a Donald Trump presidency this week, warning undecided voters as the ever tighter White House race entered its final five-day stretch.
Clinton made an optimistic choice in staging a huge rally in Arizona, a swing state she hopes to poach from the Republicans, but the Democrat's tone was grim as she invited voters to envisage her defeat.
"Imagine it is January 20, 2017 and imagine that it is Donald Trump standing in front of the Capitol," she told a 15,000-strong crowd in Tempe, triggering a chorus of boos for her Republican opponent.
"Imagine that he is taking the oath of office and then imagine that he is in the Oval Office making the decisions that affect your lives and your future," she said.
Clinton painted a picture of Trump as a president who demeans women, exacerbates racial divisions and is so thin-skinned and unpredictable that he could "start a real war instead of a Twitter war."
"The fate of the world is teetering and you, North Carolina, are going to have to make sure that we push it in the right direction," Obama declared.