There was also a discussion of how Biden could have made a more “impressive” entrance with Russia’s help.
And so it continued, with the pundit musing that what Russia really should have done is kill Boris Johnson when he became the first Western leader to visit Kyiv on April 9, 2022, just seven weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“We should have started with this shaggy clown because he didn’t just promise to destroy us, but to rip us into pieces.” He added: “There are those who want to nuke Washington. Some also want to wipe out Paris and London off the face of the Earth. I’m not a fan of that.”
How reassuring.
Then host Olga Skabeyeva, the so-called “Iron Doll” of Kremlin TV, offered some reassurances to viewers about Russia’s “special military operation” as its first anniversary approaches.
“Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine has gone on for a year now and is far from reaching its goals,” she acknowledged. “There are lots of casualties. And the United States and the so-called collective West behave as if we’re not capable of a counter-strike.
“Meanwhile, we keep on demonstrating our love for peace. We still haven’t taken off our white gloves. And if I remember correctly the phrase of our president about us haven’t even beginning to fight yet. And up until now we haven’t even begun yet. But we should have.”
Biden’s visit to Kyiv was particularly embarrassing for President Vladimir Putin because it came on the eve of his scheduled state-of-the nation address to the Federal Assembly, in which the war in Ukraine was a main topic.
CNN reported about the reaction in Russian pro-military and ultra-nationalist circles to Biden’s upstaging of Putin.
For many, the secure and skillfully executed visit of a US President was another symbol of a faltering campaign.
A Telegram account managed by Russian army and naval service members, Zapiski michmana Ptichkina, noted ironically that Biden had reached Kyiv before Putin.
“Almost a year after the beginning of the Special military operation, we are waiting in the Russian city of [Kyiv] for the president of the Russian Federation, but not for the [President of the] United States,” it said.
The Guardian reports that a Russian pro-war Telegram influencer used Biden’s visit as an opportunity to launch a careful attack on Putin for failing to visit the war zone, buried in insults to the U.S. president.
“Look, there are two grandpas,” wrote Zastavny, a pro-war Russian blogger with more than 110,000 subscribers. “One of them is old, has all the signs of Alzheimer’s, dementia, and night-time urination, the whole world makes fun of him. The other grandpa looks very good, has a spring in his step, speaks well, thinks clearly, and has the widely accepted reputation of a strong and brave leader.
“But only one of [the leaders] has actually come to Kyiv. And the other one [Putin] didn’t go to Donetsk, he still hasn’t gone.”
Still, Russian officials and the state media alike worked overtime to downplay Biden’s surprise visit, dismissing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Biden’s puppet and predicting that Russia will ultimately win the war.
The Associated Press reports:
A Russian-installed official in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Vladimir Rogov, was quoted by Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti as saying that Zelenskyy “looked like a servant next to Biden.”
Pro-Kremlin pundits on state TV also alleged that Biden received security guarantees from Moscow ahead of the visit.
“Everyone knows that if Russia said that it wouldn’t hit Kyiv during a visit of some statesmen there, it means this will never happen, because we are the ones who keep their word, those who are on the side of the good and the civilized,” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov said in a political talk show on state Russia- 1 TV channel.
The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council and former president, Dmitry Medvedev, in a post on the Telegram messaging app also claimed that Biden had received “safety guarantees.”
Medvedev said Biden “pledged allegiance to the neo-Nazi regime” — as Kremlin officials refer to Ukraine’s government — and promised it more weapons, but the millions of people leaving Ukraine provide an answer “to the question of who the future belongs to.”
Senior Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev dismissed Biden’s visit to Kyiv as a kickoff to the 2024 presidential campaign. As Kosachev told the official TASS news agency: "The bottom line of the visit: [Kyiv] has been left with no choice but to try and rush people to the senseless slaughter as part of Biden’s election campaign.”
And both TASS and the RIA Novosti news agency didn’t miss the opportunity to write about the reaction to Biden’s visit from their favorite “useful idiot” U.S. lawmaker, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
RIA Novosti referred to a tweet from Greene claiming that Zelenskyy had insulted Biden with his wardrobe.
