Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech at a reception | Alexey Druzhinin/AFP via Getty Images Putin: Donald Trump is ‘a talented person’ Russian president praises US counterpart and says UK poison case ‘is not worth five kopecks.’

U.S. President Donald Trump is "a talented person" who "knows very well what his voters expect from him,” according to Vladimir Putin.

In an interview with the FT, the Russian president referred to Trump as “Donald” several times and said: “Mr. Trump is not a career politician ... I do not accept many of his methods when it comes to addressing problems. But do you know what I think? I think that he is a talented person. He knows very well what his voters expect from him.”

Putin also rejected accusations of Russian interference in the U.S. election, saying: “Russia has been accused, and, strange as it may seem, it is still being accused ... of alleged interference in the U.S. election. What happened in reality? Mr. Trump looked into his opponents’ attitude to him and saw changes in American society, and he took advantage of this.”

In the interview, which was published Thursday evening and took place in the Kremlin's cabinet office, Putin said it was time to move on from the Salisbury poisoning scandal that soured Moscow's relations with the U.K.

“Listen, all this fuss about spies and counterspies, it is not worth serious interstate relations. This spy story, as we say, it is not worth five kopecks,” he said.

Putin will meet with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan. It will be the first time they have met since London accused two Russian intelligence officers of using a chemical weapon against former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in March last year.

May's official spokesperson said the meeting “does not represent a normalization of relations.”

However, Putin told the FT: "The list of accusations and allegations against one another could go on and on ... We need to just leave it alone and let security agencies deal with it."

Putin also told the FT that "the liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population."

European Council President Donald Tusk responded to the Russian president in a statement before the G20 summit in Osaka.

"Thanks to my jet lag I was able to read the whole interview with President Putin in the Financial Times," Tusk said. "I have to say that I strongly disagree with the main argument that liberalism is obsolete. We are here as Europeans also to firmly and univocally defend and promote liberal democracy."

He continued: "Whoever claims that liberal democracy is obsolete, also claims that freedoms are obsolete, that the rule of law is obsolete and that human rights are obsolete. For us in Europe, these are and will remain essential and vibrant values. What I find really obsolete are: authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs. Even if sometimes they may seem effective."