Russian President Vladimir Putin described his US counterpart Joe Biden on Wednesday as "more predictable" than Donald Trump but said the Kremlin was ready to work with whoever won the November election.
Asked by a journalist who Russia would like to see win the likely contest between the incumbent Democrat and the Republican front-runner, Putin said: “Biden, he's more experienced. He's predictable, he's an old-school politician."
Putin dismissed questions about Biden's age and health, with the president set to turn 82 just weeks after the election. "When I met Mr. Biden three years ago, it's true, people were already talking about his incompetence, but I didn't see anything like that," Putin said, apparently referring to a summit in Geneva.
Polls in the US show that voters are highly concerned about Biden's age. The issue of age is compounded by two recent episodes when Biden mistook European leaders for dead ancestors. Last week, the White House was forced to fiercely defend the president's competence after a special report described him as an "old man with a bad memory." Biden himself responded angrily to the accusation but then compounded the issue by conflating the presidents of Egypt and Mexico.
Trump, 77, has also mixed up people's names recently, confusing his rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Nikki Haley, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
However, Putin expressed strong opposition to Washington's foreign policy under Biden. "What we need to look at is the political position, and that of the current administration is extremely harmful and wrong," Putin said. /BGNES, AFP
