Houston Chronicle

Russia seethes over ‘killer’ comment

- By Anton Troianovsk­i

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin dryly wished President Joe Biden “good health” on Thursday after the American leader assented to a descriptio­n of his Russian counterpar­t as a “killer,” and longrunnin­g tensions morphed into a furious exchange of trans-Atlantic taunts.

The previous evening, Russia took the rare step of recalling its ambassador to Washington after Biden’s comments in a television interview, warning of the possibilit­y of an “irreversib­le deteriorat­ion of relations.” On Thursday, seated in a gilded chair on the seventh anniversar­y of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin all but called Biden a killer himself.

“When I was a child, when we argued in the courtyard, we said the following: ‘If you call someone names, that’s really your name,’ ” Putin said, quoting a Russian schoolyard rhyme. “When we characteri­ze other people, or even when we characteri­ze other states, other people, it is always as though we are looking in the mirror.”

In an interview with ABC News that was broadcast on Wednesday, when asked whether he thought Putin was a “killer,” Biden responded: “Mmm hmm, I do.” He further pledged that Putin was “going to pay” for Russian interferen­ce in the 2020 election, which was detailed in a U.S. intelligen­ce report this week.

Earlier this month, the Biden administra­tion announced sanctions against Russian officials after declassify­ing an intelligen­ce finding that Russia’s domestic intelligen­ce agency had orchestrat­ed the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

At the White House on Thursday, press secretary Jen Psaki, when asked if Biden regretted his characteri­zation of Putin, said, “Nope. The president gave a direct answer to a direct question.”

Psaki repeated warnings that sanctions and other actions against Russia are coming “in weeks, not months.”

“There are a range of other tools at the disposal of any president, seen and unseen,” Psaki said, “and we’re not going to get ahead of the process of what considerat­ions are underway.”

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia’s upper house of Parliament, warned that Russia would respond further, without specifying how, to Biden’s comments “if explanatio­ns and apologies do not follow from the American side.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said late Wednesday that it had summoned its envoy in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, to Moscow “in order to analyze what needs to be done in the context of relations with the United States.”

“We are interested in preventing an irreversib­le deteriorat­ion in relations, if the Americans become aware of the risks associated with this,” Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoma­n, said in a statement.

Putin, in his comments on Thursday, picked up on the notion being pushed by the Kremlin’s news media that Biden was somehow unwell.

“I would tell him: Be healthy,” Putin said, in response to a question about Biden’s comments posed by a woman in Crimea in a televised video conference on Thursday. “I wish him good health. I say this without irony, without joking.”

On Thursday evening, Putin appeared to try to tamp down tensions, and said he would direct officials to set up a phone call with Biden in the coming days because “we can and we must continue to have relations.”

 ??  ?? President Joe Biden sparked tension when he agreed in an interview that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a “killer.”
President Joe Biden sparked tension when he agreed in an interview that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is a “killer.”
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