In Russia, Biden's verbal slip over Putin's name draws mockery and unease

[July 13, 2024]  By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Joe Biden has shown he is "a pro-Russian candidate being controlled by the Kremlin," Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman joked on Friday, after the U.S. president misspoke and introduced Ukraine's leader as "President Putin" before correcting himself.

Video of the gaffe at a NATO summit in Washington on Thursday featured prominently on news bulletins in Russia, where state TV commentators have long depicted Biden, 81, as a senile old man who risks stumbling into World War Three unlike Putin, 71, whom they portray as a strategic genius.

Biden mixing up the names of his Republican rival Donald Trump with that of Kamala Harris, his vice-president, was also given coverage.

Olga Skabeyeva, a pro-Kremlin TV commentator, posted a clip of Biden's Putin name fumble on her social media feed with a crying with laughter emoji.

"The show from Joe goes on!," she wrote separately beneath footage of the Trump/Harris name mix-up.

Biden's gaffes come at a moment when he is facing calls from some fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid. The president has insisted he is staying in the race and is the best placed to beat Trump in the November election.

The Kremlin said Biden's errors had been widely noticed.

"We noticed that the whole world paid attention to what happened... It's clear that these were slips of the tongue," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

He said Biden's gaffes were "an internal U.S. topic" but that the Kremlin had also noted his disrespectful comments about Putin, whom the U.S. leader referred to as "a murderous madman".

"This is unacceptable to us, and we don't think it in any way makes an American head of state look good," said Peskov.

But it was Biden's verbal slips that dominated media coverage and commentary inside Russia.

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said anyone could make a mistake, but that Biden seemed to make one every day because he was "retarded".

Maria Zakharova, Russia's high-profile Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, published a sarcastic commentary that used Biden's error in introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" to mock what Moscow says are false U.S. allegations it has meddled in U.S. politics.

"It seems to me that the notorious 'Russian interference in the American elections' cannot be hidden any longer - there is a pro-Russian candidate (Biden) who is controlled by the 'hand of the Kremlin,'" Zakharova joked on her official Telegram account.

U.S. President Joe Biden coughs at a press conference during NATO's 75th anniversary summit, in Washington, U.S., July 11, 2024. REUTERS/Yves Herman

ALLEGED COVER-UP

Later, at an official news briefing, Zakharova accused "the U.S. deep state," U.S. officials and the U.S. media of covering up Biden's real condition for years in the same way she alleged they obscured what Washington was doing in Ukraine.

She said Biden's performances and the public reaction of his top advisers meant it was no longer possible to keep up the pretence.

"The question arises - is this same Biden signing all these cheques (for Ukraine)?," she said. "The same Biden who doesn't know what country he's talking about. And he is the one signing cheques for billions of dollars? Of course he can be given any piece of paper to sign," she said.

Hawkish Russian foreign policy commentators said Biden's slips were further proof of his declining mental abilities and some expressed alarm that the world's most powerful military power was led by someone whose cognitive abilities appeared to be getting progressively worse.

The Kremlin is watching the U.S. election closely.

U.S.-Russia relations plunged to their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, in what it calls "a special military operation" that it says is designed to protect its own national security.

Washington is Ukraine's biggest sponsor and Moscow has sent signals in recent weeks that it is open to a deal to end the war, albeit on maximalist terms that Kyiv has dismissed as tantamount to surrender.

While Putin has said the outcome of the U.S. presidential election is unlikely to change anything for Russia, he has taken a public interest in Trump's reported ideas to end the conflict.

Putin said earlier this month that he believed Trump was sincere about wanting to end the war, but did not know how Trump - who has praised Putin in the past - planned to do so if elected.

(Reporting by Andrew OsbornAdditional reporting by Dmitry Antonov Editing by Frances Kerry)

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