Based on Trump’s reluctance to criticise Putin in his first term and his more recent comments – including a weekend interview where he said he would encourage Russia to attack NATO members that failed to spend enough on their own defence – his many critics believe he would give the Kremlin leader a much easier ride. Biden reacted to Trump’s bluster by saying he had “bowed to a Russian dictator”, that is, Putin.

Putin opined on the two candidates, seemingly defending Biden, despite saying it would be wrong to interfere in the campaign.

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Asked about speculation on Biden’s health issues, he responded that “I’m not a doctor and I don’t consider it proper to comment on that” but also said:

“When I met with Biden in Switzerland – true, that was several years, three years ago – people were already saying he wasn’t up to it. I didn’t see anything of the kind.

“Yes, he was peeking at his papers, to be honest, I was peeking at mine, not a big deal.”

But he also brought up an episode that embarrassed the US leader, when he banged his head while getting out of a helicopter in June last year.

“Well, which of us hasn’t banged his head somewhere?” Putin said.

Trump, he said, “has been called a non-systemic politician; he has his own view on the topic of how the United States should develop relations with its allies and there have been sparks in the past, as well.”

Putin has been in power as president or prime minister since 1999, but at 71 he is a decade younger than Biden and six years younger than Trump.

He is certain to win a new six-year term in an election next month, from which two candidates who opposed the war in Ukraine have been disqualified for presenting invalid documentation.

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In 2020, a report by the US Senate intelligence committee found Russia had tried to influence the 2016 US presidential election to help Trump, who defeated Hillary Clinton.

Reuters, AP

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