Following Joe Biden’s description of Vladimir Putin as a “killer” who would “pay a price” for election meddling, Russia summoned the US ambassador to Moscow for consultations on Wednesday, sparking the new American president’s first major diplomatic crisis.
In an interview with ABC News, Biden was asked about a US intelligence article alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to derail his campaign in November 2020 to support Donald Trump.
The decision to bring Anatoly Antonov to Moscow on Wednesday (March 17) is intended to defuse rising tensions with President Joe Biden’s administration. In response to the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is now in detention, the recently established Biden administration has imposed sanctions.
The explanation for the return of the Russian ambassador to the United States was disclosed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. She claimed that relations “are in a difficult situation, which Washington has brought to a halt in recent years,” without elaborating.
The State Department in Washington acknowledged Russia’s step and said that the US would “remain clear-eyed about the threats that Russia presents.”
Reporters asked White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki if the president regards Putin as a murderer in the literal or metaphorical sense.
“He expresses his fears over what we see as malign and problematic behavior,” Psaki said, citing election meddling, Navalny’s poisoning, cyberattacks, and bounties on US troops in Afghanistan as examples.
He’s not going to be cautious with his private correspondence, and he’s not going to be coy in public,” she stated. “We are not going to look the other way as we saw a little bit over the last four years.”
According to AFP, the US ambassador will stay in Moscow to preserve “open lines of contact” and to “reduce the chance of miscalculation between our countries,” according to a State Department spokesperson.
Mr. Biden told ABC News that after taking office in January, he had a “long conversation” with Mr. Putin.
“I began the conversation by saying, ‘I know you and you know me.’ “Be prepared if I establish that this occurred,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden’s assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “killer” contrasted sharply with Mr. Trump’s adamant reluctance to say something derogatory about him.
Mr. Trump was asked about Mr. Putin being a “terrorist” in a 2017 interview with Fox News. He said, “There are a lot of killers.” “Do you believe our nation is so pure?”
