[News] Biden charges against Putin and assumes that the Russian president is "a murderer"

[WilkerCSBD]

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has charged in an interview with the television network ABC News against his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. In the conversation that was broadcast on Wednesday morning between the president and presenter George Stephanopoulos, Biden addresses the one-hour phone call between him and Putin shortly after arriving at the White House: “I know you and you know me. If I find out that [electoral interference] happened, then get ready, "the Democrat told him. The interview comes after it was confirmed that both Russia and Iran sought to influence the outcome of the past US presidential elections, according to a report released Tuesday by the Office of the National Director of Intelligence. "They will pay a price," warned the Democrat. Moscow has called its ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, for consultations.

The report of the US secret services affirms that Moscow, with the authorization of President Putin, carried out operations in favor of the Republican candidate and then president, Donald Trump. The US president maintains in the interview with Stephanopoulos that the consequences that the Kremlin will pay for its efforts to influence the November 3 elections will not take long in coming: "You will see them soon," he says. "In my experience, the most important thing when dealing with foreign leaders - and I've dealt with many - is getting to know the other person," says the Democrat.

Biden also revealed that in a solo meeting with Putin, he looked him in the eye and said "I don't think you have a soul." The Russian leader's response was: "You and I understand each other." The Democrat's phrase echoes the famous anecdote of former President George Bush, who after meeting with the Russian president in 2001 said that he looked into his eyes and could "feel his soul."

The interview was aired as the US Commerce Department announced the tightening of export restrictions imposed on Russia earlier this month as punishment for the poisoning and subsequent imprisonment of opponent Alexei Navalni.

The intelligence document that was published on Tuesday concludes that, despite this attempt, the US spy agencies did not find any evidence that any figure of foreign weight managed to disrupt the elections through the mani[CENSORED]tion of the electoral register, falsification in the votes or alterations in the count and in the information on the results. The intelligence services report "has no foundation," replied Russian government spokesman Dmitri Peskov.
He also regretted that "these documents, far from being rigorous", can be used as a pretext to impose new sanctions against Russia.

"Unlike 2016, this time we have not found any cybernetic attempt to penetrate electoral infrastructures," says the document prepared by the US In the 2016 elections, Russian hackers accessed computers and servers of the Democratic Party and published emails emails that damaged the candidacy of Democrat Hillary Clinton. The investigation - in which the CIA, the FBI or the National Security Agency (NSA) have collaborated - has also revealed Iran's efforts to undermine confidence in the electoral process to undermine Trump's re-election. . The document maintains that Moscow and Tehran engaged in "spreading false or exaggerated statements claiming that, supposedly, the voting systems were not to be trusted, which weakened public confidence in the process and the result." The US intelligence services, in their 15-page dossier, point out that the objective of Russia and Iran was not only "to undermine public confidence in the electoral system," but also to "exacerbate divisions in the United States."

The Russian Foreign Ministry has not linked Ambassador Antonov's call to Moscow with Biden's statements on Wednesday, but has mentioned that it may be a good time because the president is serving 100 days in office. However, he has charged Washington for leading bilateral ties to a "dead end in recent years." "The main thing is to determine what are the ways to straighten out Russian-American relations," said the foreign spokeswoman, Maria Zajárova, in a statement. "We are interested in preventing its irreversible degradation," she added.

The Kremlin has not responded to the statements of Biden, an old acquaintance of Putin from his time as vice president in the Barack Obama administration, when he had a very tense relationship with the Russian leader due to the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the participation of Moscow in the Donbas war, where the Kremlin supports pro-Russian separatists politically and militarily. However, Biden's words this Wednesday have sting a lot.