The Daily Beast¹Daily Beast, June 17, 2016
Donald Trump’s Unrequited Love for Vladimir Putin
retrieved 7/17/18

Putin said, apparently off the cuff, that Trump was an ochen’ yarkiy chelovek’, ochen’ talantlivy, which means, in context, “a very lively (or vivid) person, very talented.” But yarkiy was widely translated as “bright” or even “brilliant,” and the hyperbolic drift began.

Eventually debate over Putin’s real intention using the word “yarkiy” gathered so much publicity that finally, on June 17, 2016, Fareed Zakaria, a panel moderator at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, directly asked Putin to explain what he meant. The response was not a little irritated:

“Why are you distorting everything?… Take a look at what I said—I said in passing that Trump is a vivid personality. And what, he’s not vivid? He’s vivid. But I didn’t give him any other characterizations.”