Kremlin accuses Joe Biden of spreading hatred against Russia with threat talk
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Biden named Russia as Washington’s most serious global threat in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, while calling China the biggest competitor.
The Kremlin Monday said US Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden’s assessment of Russia as the biggest threat to US national security encouraged hatred against Russia.
Biden named Russia as Washington’s most serious global threat in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday, while calling China the biggest competitor.
“Well, I think the biggest threat to America right now in terms of breaking up our security and our alliances is Russia,” Biden said.
In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call: “We absolutely do not agree."
“We can only regret that absolute hatred of the Russian Federation is spread in this way.”
The comments come just over a week before Biden faces Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 US presidential election. Biden is ahead in the polls.
Moscow’s ties with Washington sank to post-Cold War lows in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Biden was serving as vice president under President Barack Obama at the time.
Relations further soured after US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election to tilt the contest in Trump’s favour, an allegation Moscow has denied.
Russia has also dismissed accusations by US intelligence agencies of trying to interfere with this year’s election.
Putin, who has praised Trump in the past for saying he wanted better ties with Moscow, has said Russia will work with any US leader, while noting what he called Joe Biden’s “sharp anti-Russian rhetoric”.
The Russian leader said on Sunday that he saw nothing criminal in past business ties with Ukraine or Russia developed by Biden’s son Hunter, marking out his disagreement with one of Trump’s attack lines in the US election.