Putin chafes at U.S., criticizes response to U.S. Capitol attack
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday set a tough tone for his upcoming summit with President Joe Biden, accusing Washington of trying to contain Russia and citing its response to the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as a manifestation of the West’s double standards.
Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said that arms control, global conflicts, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change are among the issues he and Biden would discuss at their June 16 summit in Geneva.
He voiced hope that the meeting will help ease tensions with Washington. Russia-U.S. ties have sunk to post-Cold War lows over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, accusations of Russian interference in elections in the U.S. and other Western nations, and cyberattacks that U.S. officials allege had Russian origins.
Putin reiterated that Russia rejects accusations of interfering in U.S. presidential elections, and he spoke critically of the U.S. response to the Capitol attack, which took place as Congress prepared to certify that Biden had defeated then President Donald Trump in the November election.
“They weren’t just a crowd of robbers and rioters. Those people had come with political demands,” he said.
Putin pointed out that the heavy charges against hundreds of participants in the attack were filed even as the U.S. and its allies strongly criticized Belarus’ crackdown on anti-government protests. And he charged that even as the West has criticized Russian authorities for a harsh response to anti-Kremlin demonstrations, protesters in Europe have faced an even tougher police response, with some shot in the eye by what he mockingly called “democratic rubber bullets.”
In separate comments to Russia’s Channel 1 state television, Putin added that he doesn’t expect any breakthroughs from the summit with Biden, but added that he hopes that it will help “create conditions for taking further steps to normalize Russian-U.S. relations.”
He praised Biden as a “very experienced statesman who has been involved in politics for his entire life … and a very prudent and careful person. I do hope that our meeting will be positive,” Putin said.
He also took time to scathingly deride the allegations of Russian hackers’ involvement on a U.S. pipeline and a meat plant that have clouded the atmosphere before the summit.
“I do hope that people would realize that there hasn’t been any malicious Russian activity whatsoever,” he said. “I heard something about the meat plant. — It’s sheer nonsense. We all understand it’s just ridiculous. A pipeline? It’s equally absurd.”
He alleged the hacking accusations were aired by those who try to “provoke new conflicts before our meeting with Biden,” and added on a positive note that some in the U.S. doubted Russian involvement in the hacks.