US President Joe Biden should apologize and take back “boorish” allegations that Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is a killer, a leading Russian official mentioned, a day immediately after Moscow recalled its ambassador in protest.
Biden’s remark is a “watershed” in relations and “unacceptable in any circumstances,” Konstantin Kosachyov, deputy speaker of Russia’s upper property of parliament, wrote on Facebook Thursday. Moscow’s initial reaction — recalling its US ambassador — “won’t be the last, unless there is an explanation and an apology from the American side.”
The Foreign Ministry announced it was summoning Ambassador Anatoly Antonov for consultations in a statement late Wednesday. Warning of the dangers of “an irreversible deterioration in relations” with the new U.S. administration, the ministry mentioned Russia nonetheless hopes to reverse the downward spiral in ties.
The diplomatic demarche came immediately after Biden agreed with ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview that Putin was a killer and mentioned the Russian leader would “pay a price” for alleged meddling in US elections.
Agree that Russia recalling Amb. Antonov from Washington is not a crisis. It is the consequence of undesirable relations, primarily due to Putin’s aggression against the US, Europe, and some of Russia’s neighbors (and his personal individuals). @ACEurasiahttps://t.co/hj82iuG0ph
— Daniel Fried (@AmbDanFried) March 17, 2021
Biden’s comments, recorded Tuesday, came the exact same day as a US intelligence neighborhood report that Putin ordered influence operations to hurt his candidacy in the 2020 election, favoring former President Donald Trump just as the intelligence neighborhood says the Russian leader did in 2016 against then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Kremlin denies any interference.
The ruble was tiny changed early Thursday immediately after falling to the lowest in a week a day earlier.
Many officials in Putin’s government and associates of the Russian leader currently live beneath U.S. sanctions due to prior rounds of punishment for election interference, attacks on political opponents and Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, limiting Biden’s alternatives for fresh targets. Putin is marking the seventh anniversary of the 2014 annexation on Thursday.
New U.S. sanctions could come as quickly as next week and may perhaps target Russia’s oligarchs and other individuals close to Putin, according to two individuals familiar with the matter. The influence of the penalties may perhaps be muted, as Russians hit with U.S. sanctions ordinarily never retain U.S. bank accounts or have plans to travel to the nation.
In his interview, Biden mentioned he’d had a “long talk” with Putin and had told him, “I know you and you know me. If I establish this occurred, then be prepared.”