The spat between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin may have become the most important political news story of the past week. After all, it’s not every day that the president of one country calls the president of another a murderer, and it’s even rarer that a politician who has never participated in a debate challenges a politician who has devoted his entire life to debating. This story evoked a wide range of emotions-from the outrage of supporters and simply offended subjects to irony and sarcasm.
Those who expressed themselves in this way tried to imagine the situation by analogy with Gogol’s «How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich». As if two senile grandfathers got into a fight — it happens.
However, jokes aside, the situation that has developed looks extremely serious, at least for one person, or as he likes to express it about his opponent, the «figure». And there’s no need to moralize about «what about the judges,» remembering that Americans themselves are up to their elbows in blood. Yes, in a sense, the leader of any state involved in conflicts and defending its interests by force can be considered a murderer, because he has to make decisions that lead to the killing of people. And Biden is no exception.
But there is a difference between killing enemies of one’s own state and turning one’s own state into a mafia, a feeding trough for enriching oneself and one’s entourage, and killing those citizens of one’s own country who oppose this, be they opposition politicians, journalists, human rights activists, or civil activists. Therefore, when Biden, who is by no means a pacifist, calls our «character» a murderer, he means exactly that, namely the long list of murders of Russians who stood in his way, which were impossible without his direct order or without his tacit approval.
However, when it is revealed that an entire department of the Russian special services has been involved in the killing of Russian politicians, journalists, human rights activists, etc. for many years, this becomes the last straw, after which it becomes impossible to silence the problem.
Moreover, let us not be naive idealists — this would hardly have concerned the Americans if it had not gone beyond Russia’s borders. However, a few years ago, the «figure» clearly told the whole world that «Russia’s borders do not end anywhere,» and his numerous actions show that he seriously believes this. Therefore, the assessment he received this week is a kind of black mark given to him this time, which finally moves him from the category of world leaders to the category of world gangsters. And no nursery rhyme about «he who insults, is himself called» will change that.
It must be understood that even this week Biden did not limit himself to an unprecedentedly frank and harsh verbal assessment. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken threatened European companies involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with American sanctions, and a bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to provide Ukraine with $300 million in annual military aid through the provision of lethal weapons. Donald Trump blocked these measures, but Joe Biden is expected to give them the green light.
When Joe Biden became President of the United States, we wrote earlier that he could be a very problematic figure not only for Vladimir Putin but also for a number of Muslim leaders. Today’s statement by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the unacceptability of Biden’s remarks about Putin also indicates, at first glance, that he perceives the new American policy as a threat and wants to oppose it together with his «unfortunate colleague».
But while this may be true, we have seen practical steps by the United States in the opposite direction this week. For example, at the March 25-26 summit, the Biden administration called on EU countries to refrain from imposing sanctions on Turkey over its Eastern Mediterranean policy in order to support progress in negotiations on the issue. And against the backdrop of the ongoing deterioration of relations between the West and Russia, we can observe a decrease in the level of confrontation between the West and Turkey. For example, against the background of the process initiated in Turkey this week to ban the Kurdish neo-communist party HDP (Peoples’ Democracy Party), the German authorities unequivocally called for the condemnation of the terrorist organization PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), indicating that they would not condemn its closure otherwise. At the same time, this week the head of the EU’s foreign policy body, Nabila Massrali, practically sided with Joe Biden’s opinion of Vladimir Putin, stating in response to a relevant question that he is responsible for what happens to the leaders of the Russian opposition.
In short, despite the fact that there may be numerous potential victims of the new American administration, it seems that our «character» is the first in line. And no matter how much he jokes about it, it doesn’t bode well for him.