Russian President Vladimir Poutine on Thursday mocked his American counterpart who described him as a “killer”, before reaffirming that Russia will defend its interests and work with the United States where it is “advantageous”.
• Read also: Biden says he thinks Putin is “a killer”
“It is the one who says it who is,” said Putin, smiling, according to remarks broadcast on Russian television.
“It’s not just a childish expression, a joke. The meaning is deep, and psychological. We always see our own characteristics in the other, ”he said.
Mr. Putin, who also said to wish “good health, without any irony” to President Biden, then reaffirmed that Moscow would not be intimidated by Washington, a leitmotif of its diplomacy.
“We will defend our own interests and we will work with (the Americans) on terms that will be advantageous to us,” he added.
He was speaking during a video-conference with representatives of civil society from Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014, the starting point of ever more conflicting Russo-Western relations.
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Russian Ambassador to Washington to leave for Moscow
The Russian ambassador to Washington will leave for Moscow on Saturday for consultations on the future of the Russian-American relationship, after Joe Biden said he thought his counterpart Vladimir Putin was “a killer”.
“During meetings at the Russian Foreign Ministry and with other bodies, it will be a question of means of correcting the Russian-American relationship in crisis,” wrote the Russian embassy in the United States overnight from Wednesday to Thursday. on Facebook.
According to her, “the thoughtless statements of American officials risk causing the collapse of already excessively conflicting relations”.
Russian diplomacy said it had “invited” its ambassador Anatoly Antonov to return to Moscow for talks after the American president replied in the affirmative on Wednesday to a journalist asking him if Mr. Putin was a killer.