Thread by @Monaheart1229

Don't let his words about swapping licks with Biden in "a courtyard" fool you...
Putin is squirming!
nytimes.com/live/2021/03/1…

2-"Russia recalled its ambassador to the United States amid a storm of trans-Atlantic taunts after President Biden said in a television interview that he thought President Vladimir V. Putin was a killer.

3-"Russia’s Foreign Ministry said late Wednesday that it had summoned its envoy in Washington, Anatoly I. Antonov, to Moscow “in order to analyze what needs to be done in the context of relations with the United States.”

4-"That was followed by an appearance by Mr. Putin on Russian television on Thursday, in which he dryly wished Mr. Biden “good health” and quipped that the back-and-forth reminded him of a boyhood tiff.

5-"'When I was a child, when we argued in the courtyard, we said the following: ‘If you call someone names, that’s really your name,’” Mr. Putin said. “When we characterize other people, or even when we characterize other states, other people,

6-"it is always as though we are looking in the mirror,” he said, seated in a gilded chair on the seventh anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which Mr. Biden has fiercely condemned.

7-"[Today] Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, downplayed the scrap, saying that the administration had no plans to pull its ambassador to Moscow. But she dismissed a suggestion that the president should walk back his comments.

8-"'The president is not going to hold back, clearly, when he has concerns, whether it is with words or actions,” Ms. Psaki said.
Asked if Biden regretted his response, she added, “Nope. He gave a direct answer to a direct question.”
~NYT