Russian envoy back in Moscow for guidance after Biden's 'killer' jab

MOSCOW • Russia's ambassador to the United States arrived in Moscow yesterday for discussions on how to address sliding US-Russia relations after US President Joe Biden said he thought Mr Vladimir Putin was a killer, the Tass news agency reported.

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced last Wednesday that it was recalling ambassador Anatoly Antonov for urgent talks after Mr Biden said in an ABC interview he thought President Putin was a killer who would "pay a price" for alleged meddling in the US election - an accusation that Moscow denies.

Mr Putin responded to Mr Biden by citing a Russian children's playground chant that "he who said it, did it", and offered to hold live online talks with the US President, a proposal Mr Biden has not so far taken up.

The Russian embassy in Washington's social media accounts posted a picture of Mr Antonov in the early hours of yesterday morning at a US airport, with an Aeroflot plane idling on the runway.

"Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov is on his way to Moscow to participate in consultations on rectifying Russia-US relations," the embassy said.

Both countries have said they will only cooperate when it is in their national interest to do so. State TV's First Channel said Mr Antonov told reporters before boarding his plane that there a was a lot of work for the Russian Foreign Ministry and others to do, but that he had no doubt that keeping lines of communication open was in the interests of the American people.

The channel then read out what it said were excerpts of letters sent to Mr Antonov by Americans before his departure, apologising for Mr Biden's comments about Mr Putin. Tass said a plane carrying Mr Antonov had touched down at Moscow's Sheremtyevo airport yesterday morning.

Meanwhile, Russia's ambassador to Britain Andrei Kelin has accused London of breaking its international treaty commitments with a plan to increase the country's nuclear arsenal and said the political relationship between Moscow and London is "nearly dead".

In a foreign and defence policy review published last Tuesday and endorsed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Britain said it needed to increase its nuclear arsenal in the face of evolving global security threats.

Britain said it would raise the upper limit on its nuclear warhead stock to 260 from 180. The same report also classified Russia as "the most acute threat to our security" in the Euro-Atlantic region.

The Kremlin said at the time that it regretted the British nuclear decision, which it suggested would harm international stability, while the Russian Foreign Ministry described the move as a serious blow to international arms control.

Mr Kelin went further in an interview scheduled to be broadcast on the London-based LBC radio station yesterday, saying the plan looked illegal.

"You are increasing the number of warheads by 40 per cent. This is a violation of the treaty of non-proliferation and many, many other agreements that are saying only a decline or a reduction in the number of nukes," Mr Kelin told LBC, according to a partial transcript.

He was cited by Russian media as saying that the political relations between London and Moscow, which have become strained from events such as Russia's jailing of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, were "nearly dead" and that only cultural and economic ties remained.

REUTERS