Russian President Vladimir Putin shared a Russian saying on Tuesday when asked about U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent call for world leaders to unite in suppressing Putin.
“We have a well-known saying in Russia: ‘Live forever, learn forever.’ And this applies not only to President Joe Biden, but to the US political elite as a whole,” Putin said, according to the Kremlin-run TASS news agency.
He reportedly made the comments while answering questions from a journalist working for Russian state media outlet VGTRK. The journalist had asked Putin about comments Biden made during an interview with CBS News. 60 minutes That aired on Sunday and was about rallying the world against Putin.
“Imagine what happens when we actually unite all of Europe and Putin is finally put under pressure where he can no longer cause the kind of trouble that he has caused,” Biden said. “We have enormous opportunities, enormous opportunities to improve the world.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) addressed Biden’s recent comments on Tuesday about world leaders uniting to suppress Putin. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Speaking to WGTRK from Beijing, Putin said Biden and U.S. officials must learn to respect the Russian people.
“This is not about me personally. It’s about the country’s interests. And it is impossible to suppress Russia’s interests. They must be taken into account,” he said, according to TASS.
Putin continued: “You have to learn to respect others, then there will be no need to oppress anyone.”
Newsweek I emailed the White House for comment.
Biden has frequently condemned Putin for the war the Russian president launched against Ukraine in February 2022, and the United States has been Kiev’s largest aid supplier throughout the conflict.
On Tuesday, the White House and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the US had supplied Ukraine with the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), marking a significant change in the Biden administration’s stance on supplying long-range weapons to Kyiv.
Officials in Kiev have long called for long-range surface-to-surface missiles from the United States, but the Biden administration has so far been reluctant to provide Kiev with long-range missiles for fear that such a move could lead to a military escalation by Putin.
Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday that ATACMS were used in night attacks on Russian airfields in two occupied Ukrainian cities, resulting in the destruction of nine helicopters and the deaths of an unspecified number of Russian soldiers.
Putin did not publicly comment on the ATACMS attack on his first day in Beijing, where he was invited by Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend the third Belt and Road Forum.
The visit to China is Putin’s first trip outside former Soviet Union countries since the International Criminal Court (ICC), of which China is not a member, issued an arrest warrant for him on war crimes charges in March.
Source : www.newsweek.com