Biden Claims He’s ‘Known’ Russia’s Vladimir Putin ‘For Over 40 Years’ — Even When He Was Undercover KGB Agent

On Thursday, President Biden stated that he has “known” Vladimir Putin “for over 40 years,” despite the fact that Russia’s leader was an undercover KGB officer throughout the entire 1980s.

“I’ve known him for over 40 years. He’s concerned me for 40 years. He’s not a decent man,” Biden, 81, said to ABC News anchor David Muir during an interview in France at the Normandy American Cemetery, commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Putin served in the Soviet Union’s spy agency from 1975 to 1991, working in St. Petersburg and East Germany before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. This timeline makes it improbable that Biden was aware of him as early as he claimed.

After his KGB tenure, Putin became an aide and later deputy mayor to St. Petersburg’s mayor Anatoly Sobchak from 1991 to 1996. He then held positions in the Kremlin and led the Federal Security Service, the KGB’s successor after the USSR’s 1991 dissolution, as reported by the Guardian.

“Until he was handpicked in August [1999] by then-President Boris Yeltsin to become prime minister, Putin had never been a public figure,” the Washington Post noted in January 2000.

Biden did meet Putin when Biden was vice president and Putin was Russia’s prime minister, and they spoke again at a Geneva summit in June 2021.

In his Thursday interview, Biden clarified that his authorization for Ukraine to use US weapons was limited to strikes within the Russian-occupied Kharkiv region.

“They’re authorized to be used in proximity to the border when they’re being used on the other side of the border to attack specific targets in Ukraine,” Biden said. “We’re not authorizing strikes 200 miles into Russia and we’re not authorizing strikes on Moscow, on the Kremlin.”

On Wednesday, Putin claimed that the US weapon supplies to Ukraine and their authorized use constituted “direct participation in the war against the Russian Federation.” He warned that the Kremlin would “reserve the right to act in a similar way,” hinting at Russia’s nuclear capabilities.

“He’s a dictator, and he’s struggling to make sure he holds his country together while still keeping this assault going,” Biden told Muir on Thursday. “We’re not talking about giving them weapons to strike Moscow, to strike the Kremlin, to strike against — just across the border, where they’re receiving significant fire from conventional weapons used by the Russians to go into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians.”

In remarks earlier on Thursday, Biden stated that “tyrants” are posing a greater threat to the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance “more at risk now than at any point since World War II,” but he assured that the US and Europe “will not bow down.”

“We cannot surrender to the bullies, it is simply unthinkable. If we do, freedom will be subjugated, all Europe will be threatened,” he said.

{Matzav.com}