WASHINGTON (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin faulted his imprisoned political rival for leaving Russia without legal permission, omitting the vital detail that the departure was, literally, an unconscious decision: Alexei Navalny was in a coma.
After meeting President Joe Biden in Geneva, Putin also weighed in on U.S. affairs in distorted ways as he tried to equate the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol with his political opposition at home and argued against the evidence that the United States is a more pernicious source of cyberattacks than his country.
Biden overstated the tribulations of his stateside political opponents. Republicans are not a “vastly diminished” party, as he contended in trying to assure the Group of Seven major industrial nations and NATO allies that his policies won’t be shredded by the next election.
A look at the veracity of some statements from Biden’s week of diplomacy and his return to the domestic fray:
POLITICS