MOSCOW, Feb 22 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday that Joe Biden had debased the United States by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “crazy SOB”, casting the U.S. president’s remark as part of a failed “Hollywood cowboy” act.
“The use of such language against the head of another state by the president of the United States is unlikely to infringe on our president, President Putin,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters. “But it debases those who use such vocabulary.”
Peskov said the remark was “probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy. But honestly I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Has Mr Putin ever used one crude word to address you? This has never happened. Therefore, I think that such vocabulary debases America itself,” Peskov said, adding that such language was a disgrace for the United States.
Others were less restrained.
Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev, who served as president from 2008-2012, said the existential threat to the world came from “useless old geezers, like Biden himself”. Medvedev said Biden was “senile” and “ready to start a war with Russia”.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the next time Biden used the phrase “crazy son of a bitch” he should “try to remember that Americans associate it best with his own offspring, Hunter Biden.”
Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets said “Biden insulted Putin” while Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said the Biden remark shows that the West was intensifying its attempt to demonise Putin ahead of the March election.
The war in Ukraine, the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and U.S. assertions that Russia plans to put a nuclear weapon in space have led to the biggest crisis in relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War.
Top Russian and U.S. diplomats say they do not remember a time when relations between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers were worse, including during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Russian officials say the West rushed to blame Putin without waiting for evidence. The Kremlin says the West’s reaction to Navalny’s death is unacceptable and unjustified.
Biden said in a speech in Warsaw in 2022 that Putin “cannot remain in power”. The White House played down the remark, while hardliners in Russia saw it as evidence that the U.S. wanted to topple Putin.
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Hugh Lawson
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As Moscow bureau chief, Guy runs coverage of Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Before Moscow, Guy ran Brexit coverage as London bureau chief (2012-2022). On the night of Brexit, his team delivered one of Reuters historic wins – reporting news of Brexit first to the world and the financial markets. Guy graduated from the London School of Economics and started his career as an intern at Bloomberg. He has spent over 14 years covering the former Soviet Union. He speaks fluent Russian.
