“A bright and talented person without any doubt”, “an outstanding and talented personality”, “the absolute leader of the presidential race”.
That’s a lot of verbal acreage, far beyond one word which means both “bright” and “gaudy”. This is Putin slithering back, and quite frankly if memory serves his “building relations with Europe” consisted of selling fossil-fuels with the provision that he could and would turn off the tap any time as a means of controlling them politically.
And such are the mixed blessings of the oil biz. We’ve had less trouble with Islamic Middle East doing that to us, but at the expense of kissing their jihadist rears.
At the least, having serious competition can keep the jihadist oil sheiks from getting too big for their pantaloons.