Well, it is the 57th day of Joe Biden's presidency, and things sure are different from RUSSIA ARE YOU LISTENING? WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU, RUSSIA? CAN YOU PLEASE HELP ME GET ELECTED SINCE ACTUAL AMERICANS HATE ME, RUSSIA? One of Donald Trump's common retorts when all his Russified Russophilia was pointed out was that it was a good thing for America to have a better relationship with Russia. And taken completely out of context, that is true!

But it can't happen with a Russia that's led by a two-bit dictator who murders journalists, poisons the opposition, and generally gallivants around the globe stealing elections for authoritarians. So we does the best we can with what we got!

A few weeks back, the Biden administration, along with the European Union, announced a shit-ton of new sanctions on Russia in response to its poisoning and jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Then they announced some more yesterday. They're also reportedly going to put new sanctions on Russia for its enormous SolarWinds hack, and there may be even more coming once Biden gets the results of the review he ordered on Putin putting bounties on American troops' heads in Afghanistan.

This week, the American intelligence community released a declassified report that showed in painstaking detail how Russia attacked the 2020 election to help its golden boy Trump, with the help of wide-eyed American morons like Rudy Giuliani and Ron Johnson, who had NO IDEA they were being used for a Russian attack, even though they were told one million times.

In the olden days of Trump, that report would have been BURIED in the BIN LADEN SERVER, where secrets about Trump selling America to Putin to pay off his debts are SUPPOSED TO GO! Allegedly!

And THEN! President Joe Biden went on TV and said Vladimir Putin is a killer, and also said Putin is going to "pay a price" for attacking our elections. Biden said we'll "see shortly" what kind of price that is. That was a far cry from when Bill O'Reilly asked Trump the same question and Trump was like DURRRR A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE KILLERS, AMERICA IS BAD TOO, and then probably immediately called Putin on his secret Jitterbug phone to ask if what he said was OK.

Well! Putin MAD now! Well he never! "I know you are but what am I," Putin essentially said today, in Russian.

"I remember when I was young and I got into fights with my friends, we always used to say 'whoever calls names is called that himself,'" he added.

"And that's not just a children's joke. The meaning is quite deep psychologically. We always see our own qualities in another person and think that he/she is like ourselves. And coming from that, evaluate his/her actions and evaluate him/her overall."

Like we said.

Watch the video, if you know Russian!

First Putin expressed his GRRR ARGH-ness last night by recalling Russia's ambassador to the United States, with the Russian Foreign Ministry explaining that they were doing so "in order to analyze what needs to be done in the context of relations with the United States."

Dmitry Peskov, who is kind of like the Kayleigh McEnany of the Kremlin, said Biden's remarks were "very bad," reacting like a common Republican offended that Biden's not doing "unity" the way they like.

Today, Putin also wished Biden "good health" and he said he was saying that "without irony, and not as a joke," so that's pretty much the Putin-ese equivalent of telling Biden he hopes he doesn't fall out of any windows or eat any Novichok cupcakes anytime soon, like a common Russian journalist or scientist or dissident or LGBTQ person or ...

Anyway, the point is that when Putin wishes somebody "good health," he has to clarify whether he is joking, and when he says he's not, he probably is. Christ, what an asshole.

Hey, wanna know where Putin said this shit? NBC News reports that it was "during a call with residents of Crimea marking its 2014 annexation from Ukraine." Or, without weak-ass weasel words like NBC News wrote, Putin was in the middle of congratulating himself on declaring war on Ukraine and stealing its land seven years ago, which is why to this day he's a pariah from international groups like the G7. (Remember how hard Trump tried to get Putin back in? The G7 told Trump to fuck off like a majority of Georgia voters.)

Other Russian officials have been whining about Biden's remarks. Here's Peskov again:

Peskov seemed to imply that they could get worse, warning Thursday that Russia's response to Biden's remarks will be "absolutely clear." He didn't elaborate.

"It's clear that [Biden] doesn't want to normalize relations with our country. This is what we'll be guided by from now on," Peskov said.

Uh huh OK. Here's another one:

Konstantin Kosachev, a deputy speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house, said in a Facebook post that Biden's "gross statement sends any expectations for the new U.S. administration's policy toward Russia down the drain."

Kosachev really wants Biden to SAY SORRY. Sorry, buddy, don't think that one's forthcoming.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Russian state television on Thursday that Moscow expects an explanation for Biden's comments.

"Why do we always have to translate their strange, unintelligible political gibberish into normal speech?" she said.

Perhaps she's having flashbacks to the Trump years, but Biden said what he said. There's your explanation, you fuckin' dicks.

Most of the commentary we're reading today is pretty sure all this Tuff Talk from the Russian government — the New York Timeshas a bunch more — is meant for a Russian audience, which is good, because we don't get the sense the White House is real upset about it.

Fifty-seven days in. My how things have changed.

[NBC News / Washington Post]

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