AA / Moscow / Elena Teslova
Russia summoned the US ambassador to Moscow on Monday to protest the US president’s “insulting remarks” towards his Russian counterpart, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
In a statement posted on its official website, the ministry said it delivered a protest note to US Ambassador John Sullivan over US President Joe Biden’s insulting remarks to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“It was pointed out that such statements by the US President, unbecoming of such a high-ranking statesman, put Russian-US relations on the brink of rupture. We warned that hostile actions once morest Russia would receive a decisive and firm response,” the ministry said.
The ministry added that it also asked the US ambassador to ensure the normal functioning of Russian diplomatic missions in the United States.
In response to a reporter’s question on March 16, Joe Biden said he considered Vladimir Putin to be “a war criminal.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded that the US president, leader of a country that has “bombed people all over the world” for many years and dropped nuclear bombs on the defeated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has no right to accuse the Russian president of war crimes.
According to UN estimates, at least 925 civilians have been killed and around 1,500 others have been injured in Ukraine since Russia launched its military offensive once morest its western neighbor on February 24.
The UN said the actual data is likely much higher, as conditions on the ground make verification difficult.
More than 3.38 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the start of the war, while some 6.5 million people have been forced to move inside the country, once more according to UN estimates.
*Translated from English by Mourad Belhaj
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