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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday asked US President Joe Biden to hold virtual conversations after the US leader described him as a “murderer.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin participates via video link in an inauguration ceremony of a gold processing plant in Kyrgyzstan, in Moscow, on March 17, 2021. Image: Alexei Druzhinin / AFP
MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday asked US President Joe Biden to hold virtual talks after the US leader described him as a “murderer.”
Speaking on the sidelines of an event marking seven years since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin invited Biden for a “live” or “online” discussion in the coming days.
“I want to invite President Biden to continue our discussion, but on the condition that we do it practically live, as they say, online,” Putin said in televised remarks, suggesting that the conversation will take place on Friday or Monday.
He said it would be an “open direct discussion” that would be “interesting” to the people of Russia and the United States.
In an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, when asked if he thought Putin, who has been accused of ordering the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, is “a murderer”, Biden said: “Yes, I do.”
The US president’s remarks sparked the biggest crisis in bilateral relations in years, and later on Wednesday Russia ordered its ambassador in Washington to return to Moscow for urgent consultations in a move unprecedented in recent diplomatic history.
Earlier on Thursday, Putin mocked the US leader’s comments, saying “it takes one to know one” and wishing the 78-year-old Biden good health.
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