President Biden has called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "crazy SOB" at a California fundraiser, prompting a flurry of angry responses from the Kremlin and Putin’s allies.
Biden made the comment Wednesday at a campaign event in San Francisco while speaking about climate change.
"This is the last existential threat, it is climate. We have a crazy SOB that guy, Putin others. And we always have to be worried about a nuclear conflict," Biden said. "But the existential threat to humanity is climate."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded Thursday by saying that Biden’s comment was "probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy," according to Reuters.
"The use of such language against the head of another state by the president of the United States is unlikely to infringe on our president, President Putin," Peskov added. "But it debases those who use such vocabulary."
"Has Mr Putin ever used one crude word to address you? This has never happened. Therefore, I think that such vocabulary debases America itself," Peskov also told Reuters.
The news agency reports that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the existential threat to the world is from "useless old geezers, like Biden himself" and that the "senile" president is "ready to start a war with Russia."
Biden also criticized Putin and his allies last week following the mysterious death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in prison.
Biden said Friday that there is "no doubt" it was a "consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did."
"People across Russia and around the world are mourning Navalny today, because he was so many things that Putin was not," Biden continued. "He was brave, he was principled, he was dedicated to building a Russia where the rule of law existed and where it applied to everybody. Navalny believed in that Russia, that Russia, he knew it was a cause worth fighting for and obviously even dying for."
Fox News’ Kaitlin Sprague contributed to this report.
