Putin Heaps Praise on Biden After Summit

The two leaders agreed to return each other's ambassadors and to hold arms control and cyberattack talks in the future

Russian President Vladimir Putin had kind words for President Biden on Thursday after the two leaders met in Geneva Wednesday.

The summit appeared to go relatively well considering the low-state of US-Russia relations. Biden and Putin agreed to return ambassadors to each other’s capital and to hold talks in the future on arms control and cyberattacks.

Back in Moscow on Thursday, Putin heaped praise on Biden. “Biden is a professional, and you have to be very careful in working with him to make sure you don’t miss anything. He doesn’t miss anything, I can assure you,” he said.

Putin defended Biden from media reports that portray the US president as struggling to do his job due to his age and apparent mental decline. “I want to say that the image of President Biden that our press and even the American press paints has nothing in common with reality,” Putin said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also had good things to say about the summit, which he described as “productive.” He singled out a joint statement from Biden and Putin that reaffirmed that the two countries are committed to never fighting a nuclear war.

“It may be a short statement but … it reflects the special responsibility of our two countries not only before our own peoples but, as pretentious as it may sound, before the whole world,” Peskov said.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.