Vladimir Putin blasts Joe Biden’s 'Hollywood macho’ act

Putin dismisses Joe Biden’s description of him as a killer and lavishes praise on Donald Trump before the two leaders’ meeting.

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will meet on Wednesday. Picture: AFP.

President Putin has dismissed President Biden’s description of him as a killer, describing it as “Hollywood – macho behaviour” while lavishing praise on Donald Trump before the two leaders’ face-to-face meeting this week.

The Russian leader contrasted Biden’s “career man” background with the “extraordinary” Trump as US officials ruled out a joint press conference in Geneva on Wednesday.

Biden, 78, has another potentially testy one-to-one today on the sidelines of Nato in Brussels with President Erdogan of Turkey, who insisted on Sunday that his country was an ally that the US could count on despite a rift over the purchase of Russian missiles.

Erdogan, 67, has been backsliding on democratic norms at home but he nevertheless must be kept onside by the US as a bulwark against Moscow.

Biden plans to raise a range of US complaints with Putin, 68, including election interference and extortion by Russian-based hackers.

Although Putin described the relationship with the US in an interview with NBC as having deteriorated to its lowest point in recent years, he also said he expected that he could work with Biden. “It is my great hope that, yes, there are some advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements on behalf of the sitting US president,” he said.

“I believe that former US president Trump is an extraordinary individual, a talented individual … He is a colourful individual. You may like him or not but he didn’t come from the US establishment.”

Asked by NBC about Biden’s agreement in a March interview that Putin was a killer, Putin said: “As far as harsh rhetoric, I think that this is an expression of overall US culture. Of course in Hollywood, there are some deep things in Hollywood – macho behaviour.”

Putin told Russian media that Biden’s decision to prolong the world’s sole remaining nuclear arms treaty was evidence that he was capable of taking decisions based on “professional analysis” rather than “the spur of the moment”, a comment that seems to have been a thinly veiled criticism of Trump.

Putin has in recent years leapt on Erdogan’s tension with the West by wooing Turkey. Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system has led to it being kicked out of Nato’s F-35 fighter jet program and brought sanctions from Washington.

Erdogan, meanwhile, is entering his meeting with Biden keen to spin it as the start of a new page in relations. Headlines in Turkish newspapers over the past week have talked of him going to Brussels with a “positive” agenda.

Erdogan’s team made no secret of their preference for Trump in the elections and attempts to hold an olive branch across the Atlantic have largely fallen flat. The first time Biden called Erdogan was to inform him that the US would recognise the Armenian genocide of 1915-16, a hefty rebuke to Ankara. “This has seriously saddened us. Turkey is not an ordinary country; it’s an ally of America,” Erdogan said.

BIDEN’S SCHEDULE

Monday: Nato leaders’ meeting, where he will meet President Erdogan of Turkey on the sidelines, the first time they will have met face to face since Biden became president in January.

Tuesday: Takes part in a summit between the US and EU in Brussels, aiming to strengthen the transatlantic partnership.

Wednesday: In Switzerland for talks with President Putin, to be held in a villa overlooking Lake Geneva.

The Times