Donald Trump has praised Vladimir Putin for not retaliating against President's Obama's sanctions for Moscow's alleged hack of the presidential election.
In a dramatic intervention which puts him directly at odds with Obama, Trump said the Russian president is 'very smart.'
Putin had said he would keep his powder dry until Trump was in office, and seemed to go out of his way to praise America's president-elect in a New Year's message to world leaders.
Trump said in a tweet that it was a 'great move,' adding: 'I always knew he was very smart!'
The official Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in Washington quickly retweeted the message.
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Intervention: The dramatic move by Trump puts him in the middle of the Cold War-style standoff Obama was having with Putin - and likely to be accused by Democrats of being too close to the Kremlin strongman
Bringing division: Putin, who handled a sword from a Russian TV show about Vikings at the Kremlin on Friday, is now the key dividing line between the 44th and 45th presidents
Cold warrior: Putin toured an archaeological exhibition in the Kremlin's extensive grounds after his stand-off with Obama escalated.
Ice cold: Putin went walkabout inside the Kremlin in the wake of the standoff with Obama
The tweet is likely to generate uproar among Democrats who see election-year hacking and leaking of political secrets related to Hillary Clinton's failed presidential campaign as a major reason she lost to Trump.
The White House on Thursday directly accused the Kremlin of intervening in the election in an attack on democracy, a position the Trump camp does not agree with.
Trump's intervention will only heighten feelings, which Democrats have repeatedly aired, that he is too close to Moscow.
Obama's sanctions, announced on Thursday, included the expulsion of 35 diplomats the White House accused of being intelligence agents, the closure of two luxury compounds used by diplomatic aides and the announcement of economic sanctions on Moscow's spy services.
Russia, which denies hacking the election, treated the moves with derision.
Putin responded by declining to initiate tit-for-tat expulsions, and then invited American diplomats' children to the Kremlin for a New Year's party.
Russian officials launched a verbal assault on President Obama and his administration, calling them 'losers.'
A key Putin ally called Obama himself a 'political corpse'.
Putin had been expected to mirror Obama's decision to expel 35 intelligence agents with Cold War-style revenge expulsions.
His foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had called for the measure, but instead Putin – who coolly met the makers of a Russian TV drama about Vikings and posed with a large sword – said he was waiting to deal with Donald Trump after his January 20 inauguration.
'We will not create problems for American diplomats. We will not expel anyone,' Putin said in a statement inviting children of US diplomats to the holiday soiree.
'We evaluate the new unfriendly steps by the outgoing US administration as a provocation aimed at further undermining Russian-American relations.'
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