Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin stated that Americans should be ashamed of their President Joe Biden, calling him a weak, sick and unhappy person.
In response to Biden's "butcher" insult about Russian President Vladimir Putin, Volodin wrote on his channel: “I used to talk about this and now I will repeat: a weak or sick person can behave like this. The reason for this behaviour will be more professionally explained by psychiatrists. From a male point of view, the weak behave this way.”
“We can be proud of our President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, his behavior and endurance deserve respect. By the way, neither Yeltsin nor Gorbachev received such epithets from the heads of the United States, for obvious reasons. Biden’s words are hysterical from impotence,” Volodin concluded.
Moreover, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the international committee of the State Duma, wrote on his Telegram channel that the president's rhetoric is "unacceptable for a world leader."
During a speech in Poland on Saturday, Biden said that Putin "cannot remain in power." However, a White House official came to his rescue and backed his comment, noting that he wasn't talking about regime change.
"The President's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region," the official clarified. "He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change."
In a statement to The Associated Press, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "It's not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia."
"Only Russians, who vote for their president, can decide that," he added. "And of course it is unbecoming for the president of the U.S. to make such statements."