Biden said Putin “will pay a price” for allegedly trying to undermine his candidacy in the election. (Archive)
Washington:
The United States expanded restrictions on Russia’s export on Wednesday when President Joe Biden said Moscow “will pay a price” for meddling in the US elections and agrees with the assessment that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a “murderer.” .
In an interview with ABC News, Biden was asked about a US intelligence report that Putin tried to damage his candidacy in the November 2020 election and promote that of Donald Trump.
“He will pay a price,” said Biden, 78. “You will see it shortly.”
The US Commerce Department announced Wednesday that it will tighten export restrictions imposed on Russia earlier this month as punishment for the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Biden said he had a “long talk” with Putin after taking office in January and knows him “relatively well.”
“The conversation started, I said, ‘I know you and you know me. If I establish that this happened, then get ready,” Biden said.
When asked if he thought Putin, who has been accused of poisoning Navalny and other political opponents, is a “murderer”, Biden said: “Yes, I do.”
The statement marked a stark contrast to Trump’s firm refusal to say anything negative about the Russian president.
In a 2017 interview with Fox News, Trump was asked if Putin was a “murderer.” “There are many murderers,” he replied. “Do you think our country is so innocent?”
Biden said that despite his thoughts on the Russian leader, “there are places where it is in our mutual interest to work together.”
“That is why I renewed the START agreement with him,” he said of the nuclear treaty. “That happened while he was doing this, but that is overwhelmingly in the interest of humanity, that we diminish the prospect of a nuclear exchange.”
“Meet the other boy”
ABC News interviewer George Stephanopoulos also reminded Biden that he once told Putin he “has no soul.”
“I told him that, yes. And his response was ‘We understand each other,'” Biden confirmed.
“He wasn’t being a wise guy. I was alone with him in his office, that’s how it happened.”
Biden said he had learned from dealing with “a large number” of leaders during a political career that spanned nearly five decades, including eight years as vice president, that the most important thing was “just getting to know each other.”
The speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament denounced Biden on Wednesday for agreeing with Putin’s description as a “murderer.”
“Biden insulted the citizens of our country with his statement,” said the president of the state Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin. “The attacks against (Putin) are attacks against our country.”
On Wednesday, the Kremlin also dismissed a US determination that Russia had targeted electoral infrastructure during the 2020 US elections.
“It is absolutely baseless and unfounded,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that it was an “excuse” to consider new sanctions against Moscow.
His words were echoed by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who also called the US report “unfounded.”
Ryabkov told the state news agency RIA Novosti that “hostile steps towards Russia” have become “the norm of life” in Washington.
According to US intelligence, Putin and other top officials “knew about and probably led” Russia’s influence operation to influence the vote for Trump.
However, it concluded that the election results were not compromised.
Russia faced allegations of meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections for launching a social media campaign to boost Trump’s candidacy and discredit his opponent Hilary Clinton.
After Biden’s victory over Trump, Putin was one of the last world leaders to congratulate the newly elected president.
Tensions between former Cold War rivals have soared in recent months over allegations of hacking and Washington’s demands that Russia release Kremlin critic Navalny.
The Commerce Department said the new measures, effective Thursday, prevent more controlled items from being exported to Russia for national security reasons, including some technology, software and parts.
“The Commerce Department is committed to preventing Russia from accessing sensitive US technologies that could be diverted to its malicious chemical weapons activities,” he said.
Ryabkov told RIA Novosti that such moves do not improve “the chances of normalizing ties.”
“In any case, the responsibility for further deterioration of Russian-American ties rests entirely with the United States,” Ryabkov said. “There should be no question about it.”
Navalny returned to Russia in January after being treated for the poisoning in Germany, and is serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term in a penal colony outside Moscow.
The latest sanctions are in addition to those of the United States already imposed on Moscow since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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