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Vladimir Putin has finally congratulated Joe Biden on his election victory, the Kremlin said, in a telegram offering “Russian-American cooperation”.
Forty two days after the US election, the Russian leader wished his incoming counterpart “every success” and “a conviction” that the two nuclear superpowers would resolve problems of global security “despite differences.”
“On my side, I am ready for cooperation and contact with you,” the Russian president’s official message on the Kremlin website read.
The confirmation came through overnight with final declarations from states in the US electoral college.
Until this morning, the joke in Moscow had been who would congratulate Joe Biden first — Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin.
Moscow has held out on recognising a Biden victory in the November 3 vote despite clear projections that showed the former vice president holding on to majorities in key states. Dmitry Peskov, his press secretary, previouslyt said that the president would wait for “official results” in what were described as disputed elections.
Mr Putin has been less hesitant in congratulating other potential colleagues. In August, the Kremlin was the first to recognise the dubious victory claims of Alexander Lukashenko next door in Belarus — despite the evidence of mass fraud and a bloody crackdown.
The delay in recognising the leader of the free world seems to stem from a fundamental clash in worldview between Mr Putin and Mr Biden.
Mr Biden had claimed he once told Mr Putin that the Russian leader had ‘no soul’ (Alexei Nikolsky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
(AP)
For the former, a man schooled in the darkest arts of Soviet espionage, foreign affairs have always been a matter of realpolitik served ice cold. He views the one-time US vice president, who sees things with a more ideological eye, with great suspicion.
As Barack Obama’s right hand man, Mr Biden bears all the scars of the United States’ botched “reset” policy and Russia’s subsequent emergence as a major disruptive power. During his eight years in office, he made little secret of where his sympathies lie with regard to Russian aggression and the ongoing six-year, undeclared war with Ukraine.
Mr Biden’s Moscow trips also created controversy. On an official vice presidential visit in 2011, the president-elect offered clear encouragement to then president Dmitry Medvedev to run against his mentor for a second term. He suggested the younger man represented Russia’s “future.”
Later, in 2014, he boasted to the New Yorker magazine that during a meeting with Mr Putin he told the former KGB officer he didn’t think he had a soul.
Mr Putin is said to have replied curtly. ”We understand each other.’”
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