VLADIMIR Putin phoned Donald Trump to thank him yesterday – after the CIA helped prevent a bomb attack in the Russian city of St Petersburg by terror group ISIS.
The Kremlin said a tip-off provided by the US spy agency allowed the would-be attackers to be arrested before they could carry out their warped plan.
A senior Trump administration official confirmed he and Putin had spoken on Sunday, but they would not provide further details of what was shared between the two countries.
The foiled attack was to have been carried out on Kazansky Cathedral, in Russia's second city of St Petersburg, plus other locations in the city where large numbers of people gather.
St Petersburg’s famous cathedral is a popular tourist site.
The Federal Security Service in Russia detained followers of ISIS last week, claiming they had been planning a suicide bomb attack on the cathedral on December 16.
In a statement, the Kremlin said: “The Russian President thanked his American colleague for the information passed on by the Central Intelligence Agency, which helped detain a group of terrorists preparing explosions in St Petersburg's Kazansky Cathedral and other busy sites in the city.”
The Kremlin did not give any details of the identity of the people detained.
In their phone call, Putin asked Trump to pass on his thanks to the CIA officers who had gathered the intelligence.
Putin said Russia would alert US authorities if it received information about any attack being planned on America.
Relations between Washington and Moscow have been fraught because of disagreements over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.
The FBI is also probing members of President Trump’s election team over allegations that they colluded with the Russians.
That followed conclusions by all US intelligence agencies – including the CIA – that Russia meddled in the US election to try and install Trump in the White House.
Russian officials say Putin believes Trump is not to blame for the tension and has tried to keep personal lines of communication open between the two men.
He praised Trump’s achievements in office during a press conference last week.
Russia has repeatedly been the target of attacks by Islamist groups.
In April this year, 14 people were killed when an explosion tore through a train carriage in a metro tunnel in St Petersburg.
Russian police detained several suspects from mainly Muslim states in ex-Soviet central Asia.
In October 2015, Islamic State used an improvised bomb to bring down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.
In December 2013, two suicide bombers killed 34 people in attacks on a railway station and trolleybus in the Russian city of Volgograd.
More than 30 people were killed and around 130 injured in a suicide bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in January 2011.
A year earlier, blasts struck Moscow metro stations during rush hour, killing 40 people.