(Al Jazeera) – Moscow-Washington ties continue to deteriorate over allegations Russia meddled in the US election and as Navalny remains in jail.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday mocked his US counterpart Joe Biden, escalating a war of words between the two world leaders.
Putin said “it takes one to know one” after Biden, a day earlier, said he thought the Russian leader was a “killer”.
Biden made the comment in an ABC News interview broadcast on Wednesday. When asked if he thought the Russian leader, who has been accused of ordering the poisoning of Alexey Navalny and other rivals, is a “killer”, Biden replied: “I do.”
Biden also described Putin as having no soul, and said he would pay a price for alleged Russian meddling in the November 2020 US presidential election, something the Kremlin denies.
Putin on Thursday retorted: “I remember, in my childhood, when we argued in the courtyard, we used to say: ‘It takes one to know one.’ And that’s not a coincidence, not just a children’s saying or joke.
“We always see our own traits in other people and think they are like how we really are. And, as a result, we assess [a person’s] activities and give assessments.
“As he [Biden] said, we know each other personally. What would I reply to him? I would say: I wish you health. I wish you health. I say that without any irony or joke.”
In a highly unusual move following Biden’s interview, Russia said it was recalling its ambassador to the United States for urgent consultations over the future of US-Russia ties.
The Russian embassy in Washington, DC said in a statement that Anatoly Antonov will leave the US on Saturday.
It added that “certain ill-considered statements of high-ranking US officials have put the already excessively confrontational relations under the threat of collapse”.
