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© Reuters. Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a gathering with members of the Safety Council by way of video hyperlink on the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence exterior Moscow, Russia February 13, 2024. Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool by way of REUTERS
By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned in an interview broadcast on Wednesday that he most well-liked Joe Biden to Donald Trump however was keen to work with any U.S. president.
Putin was requested by interviewer Pavel Zarubin who was “higher for us” out of Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican.
Putin replied with out hesitation: “Biden. He’s a extra skilled, predictable individual, a politician of the old fashioned.”
Smiling barely, he added: “However we’ll work with any U.S. president who the American individuals trust in.”
It was the primary time Putin had publicly commented on the 2024 U.S. election race during which Biden and Trump are anticipated to face one another for the second successive time.
At a time of excessive political uncertainty within the U.S., and with relations between the 2 nations at their lowest level for greater than 60 years, his feedback have been extra prone to be perceived as mischief-making than taken at face worth.
Biden has led the Western response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, together with the enlargement of the NATO alliance, the imposition of successive waves of sanctions on Moscow and the supply of billions of {dollars}’ value of help and weapons to Kyiv.
Primarily based on Trump’s reluctance to criticise Putin in his first time period and his newer feedback – together with a weekend interview the place he mentioned he would encourage Russia to assault NATO members that didn’t spend sufficient on their very own defence – his many critics imagine he would give the Kremlin chief a a lot simpler experience.
Putin allowed himself to opine on the 2 candidates, and even to debate the delicate challenge of Biden’s psychological health, regardless of saying it could be incorrect to intrude within the marketing campaign.
“After I met with Biden in Switzerland – true, that was a number of years, three years in the past – individuals have been already saying he wasn’t as much as it. I did not see something of the type,” Putin mentioned.
Whereas showing to defend Biden, he introduced up an episode that embarrassed the U.S. chief, when he banged his head whereas getting out of a helicopter in June final 12 months.
“Nicely, which of us hasn’t banged his head someplace?” Putin mentioned.
Trump, he mentioned, “has been known as a non-systemic politician; he has his personal view on the subject of how america ought to develop relations with its allies.”
Putin has been in energy as president or prime minister since 1999, however at 71 he’s a decade youthful than Biden and 6 years youthful than Trump. He’s sure to win a brand new six-year time period in an election subsequent month, from which two candidates who opposed the conflict in Ukraine have been disqualified for presenting invalid documentation.
In 2020, a report by the U.S. Senate intelligence committee discovered Russia had tried to affect the 2016 U.S. presidential election with a view to assist Trump, who defeated Hillary Clinton.
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