Julia Davis, at The Daily Beast, reports on the Russian government’s overwrought response to President Biden’s concurrence when asked in an interview whether Vladimir Putin is a killer.
Russia Threatens Vax Sabotage, Blackmail & Spy Boost After Biden Calls Putin a ‘Killer’
The Kremlin was unquestionably furious about President Joe Biden’s Wednesday interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. In contrast with President Donald Trump’s outright refusal to condemn the Russian leader for any of his actions, when Biden was asked whether he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “killer”, he succinctly replied, “Mmmm-hmm, I do.”
Zzzzziiinngg! We haven’t seen such a burn in international relations since forever! Take it from a Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, who declared that “there hasn’t been anything like this in history.”
Is this the start of world war 3?!
The Russian response began with their ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, being recalled for consultations about how this outrage should be dealt with. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson regretted that relations with the US had come to “a dead end.” Peskov went on to say that this was “very bad.”
For his part, Putin, when confronted with this outrage, looked steely-eyed into the camera and wished Biden good health. Which, granted, coming from that guy is pretty fucking terrifying. But that doesn’t quite take away from the fact that this is all quite amusing.
Vladimir Soloviev, the host of an evening current affairs tv show, declared that this was the opening shot in a new Cold War, proving that he had, in fact, understood his talking points briefing. His guest, politician Sergey Stankevich, in a bid to calm things down between the two superpowers, reached out to the Americans with some advice for keeping relations cordial. “You can think whatever you want; you just don’t say it out loud.” Perhaps taking a cue for maintaining peace, his Kremlin colleague, Oleg Morozov, opined that Biden had slipped because he is an old man.
But State tv news host Karen Shakhnazarov is not going to be so easily calmed. She dismissed the “doddering old man” propaganda and claimed that Biden is an “experienced old wolf” who knew precisely what he was saying. She demanded a “harsh response” from the insulted motherland.
Evgeny Popov, host of Russian television’s “60 Minutes”, simply mourned the change from Trump’s terrific relationship with Putin. “A surprising transformation. From ‘great guy’ to ‘killer’ in such a short time!”
And on and on.
Lest you be concerned that the silo doors have been opened over this, be aware that this is just Kabuki theatre, an opportunity for the Russians to ramp up the outrage in expectation of more severe sanctions in the wake of the ODNI joint DoJ/DHS report about Russian meddling with US elections.
Really. That’s all that this is about. They needed something — anything — to create outrage over so that they could attempt to not look like fucking dumbasses, caught once again, being dumbasses. They could have done better than Biden’s “Mmmm-hmm” but here we are.
We can expect Tucker Carlson to natter on about this, complaining about how Biden is single-handedly wrecking global stability with his senile comments. Because Carlson surely knows that Russian state tv frequently plays clips from his show, and that he’s expected to pick up on the talking points for them.