In Russia, Biden's verbal slip over Putin's name draws mockery and
unease
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[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.
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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.
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![](../images/071324PIX/news_r39.jpg)
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
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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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