WASHINGTON — Donald Trump has said he could deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin — and on Thursday, Putin returned the favor by calling Trump “a really brilliant and talented person.”

Putin gushed about the Republican presidential front-runner after his annual marathon press conference in Moscow.

“He’s a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt. It’s not our job to judge his qualities, that’s a job for American voters, but he’s the absolute leader in the presidential race,” Putin said.

Putin even hinted Trump could bring about a thaw in the icy relations between Washington and Moscow, which have been strained by Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and bombing of US-backed rebels in Syria.

“He says he wants to move on to a new, more substantial relationship, a deeper relationship with Russia, how can we not welcome that?” Putin said.

Even as Trump’s GOP rivals try to outdo each other with anti-Putin saber-rattling, the real estate mogul has said he would “get along” with the Russian strongman.

On Wednesday, Trump said: “I will get along, I think, with Putin, and I will get along with others, and we will have a much more stable world.” Trump added: “I would talk to him. I would get along with him.”

In October, after Putin launched Russian airstrikes in Syria without coordination with the US, Trump told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly regarding Putin: “He’s going into Syria. He frankly wants to fight ISIS, and I think that’s a wonderful thing.”

He told Fox in June he would have a “great relationship with Putin,” who Trump said has “no respect” for President Obama. “He’s got a tremendous popularity in Russia, they love what he’s doing, they love what he represents,” Trump added.

Employing colorful language, Putin also suggested that the Turkish government shot down a Russian jet along the Syrian border last month to “lick the US in a certain place.”

He added he didn’t know whether the US wanted to be licked — to loud laughter from an audience of hundreds.

Even as he lauded Trump, Putin declined to pick favorites in the presidential race, saying: “We won’t interfere, like they do with us.”