Russia’s Putin Hopes Biden Less Impulsive Than Trump
Russia’s Russia’s Vladimir Putin voiced hope Friday that U.S. President Joe Biden would be less impulsive than his predecessor, Donald Trump, ahead of his first summit with the new U.S. leader.
In an interview with NBC News, Putin described Biden as a “career man” who spent his life in politics.
Biden plans to raise a range of U.S. complaints, including over purported Russian election interference and hacking, in the summit with Putin on Wednesday in Geneva at the end of Biden’s first foreign trip.
“It is my great hope that, yes, there are some advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements on behalf of the sitting U.S. president,” he said, according to a translation by NBC News.
Biden has said he is under no illusions about Putin, whom he described as “a killer” in light of a series of high-profile deaths, including that of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov.
Putin had openly admitted that during the 2016 vote he supported Trump, who expressed admiration for the Russian leader and who, at their first summit, appeared to accept his denials of election interference.
Asked if he is “a killer,” Putin said the term was part of “macho behavior” common in Hollywood.
Such discourse “is part of U.S. political culture, where it’s considered normal. By the way, not here. It is not considered normal here,” he said.
