U.S. President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "crazy SOB" during a fundraiser in San Francisco on Wednesday. Speaking to a small group of donors, Biden said the climate crisis was an existential threat but that geopolitical risks could not be discounted.
"This is the last existential threat. It is climate. We have a crazy SOB like that guy Putin and others and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate," Biden said.
The Kremlin reacted Thursday, saying Biden's comments were "boorish" and more a humiliation for himself than for Putin. Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said it was likely there had been an attempt "to look like some cowboy from Hollywood, but frankly I don't think it's possible."
In other news, a senior Russian official has signaled that Moscow will not be satisfied with occupying four Ukrainian regions and could again try to capture the capital Kyiv.
Deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, told Russian media agencies that Russia could "reach Kiev" (Russia uses Soviet-era spellings when referring to Ukrainian place names) and that it could happen later, if not now.