President Joe Biden angered Kremlin officials by comparing Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hamas in a foreign policy address that drew a parallel between their respective objectives in Ukraine and Israel.
“We do not accept such a tone towards Russia and towards our president,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday, per Russian state media.
Peskov attempted a tone of restrained rebuke, but one of his more prominent Kremlin colleagues adopted another pose. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whom Biden quoted to make the case that Putin “won’t limit himself just to Ukraine” if he perceives a NATO ally as vulnerable, responded with a broadside against American support for Ukraine and Israel, which he implied would lead to nuclear war.
“Biden called money that should be spent on the death of other people far from the United States a ‘smart investment.’ We are talking about the acquisition of additional weapons worth tens of billions for Ukraine and Israel,” Medvedev, who is the Security Council of Russia’s deputy chairman, wrote on social media, according to an unofficial translation.
“And the quantity of weapons supplied will sooner or later translate into quality. High-explosive fragmentation, cumulative, incendiary and volumetric detonating charges will turn into nuclear charges.”
Biden suggested the Hamas terrorist attack that ignited Israel’s war in Gaza “echoes” Putin’s attempt to overthrow the Ukrainian government.
“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy — completely annihilate it,” Biden said. “Hamas — its stated purpose for existing is the destruction of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people. … Meanwhile, Putin denies Ukraine has or ever had real statehood. He claims the Soviet Union created Ukraine.”
That comparison is gaining traction in European Union circles, as well. “Russia and Hamas are alike,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. “Both have deliberately sought out innocent civilians, including babies and children, to kill and take hostage.
This is a barbaric way to fight. And left unchecked, this contagion has the potential to spread from Europe across the Middle East and to the Indo-Pacific.”
