Biden Claims He Knew Putin As A Young KGB Agent

In the mid-1980s Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was an unknown but up-and-coming KGB officer in his early 30s, and a then 42-year old Joe Biden was a US Senator from Delaware. 

It was still the Cold War, and there was very little contact between Western officials and representatives of the Soviet Union, given this was still the era of an 'Iron Curtain' separating Europe. With all of this in mind, watch what now 81-year old President Biden claimed in an ABC interview from France this week:

In an interview broadcast today, Biden stated twice that he has known Putin for 40 years, that is, as far back as 1984 when Putin was an unknown KGB agent in the USSR. Life and death decisions are being made by a man with a diminished grasp of reality. pic.twitter.com/VkvpiVSdaz

— David North (@DavidNorthWSWS) June 6, 2024

"I have known him for over 40 years," Biden asserted in the interview. "He has concerned me for 40 years. He is not a decent man. He is a dictator."

Given the obvious impossibility of this bizarre claim, the Kremlin on Friday reacted by saying "It is often difficult to fathom what US President Joe Biden means with his statements," according to state media.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated in a mocking tone, "sometimes one can only wonder what the US president means, including when he speaks about [knowing Putin for] 40 years."

The press pool in Moscow reportedly laughed out loud when Peskov followed by observing that apparently the US President "rolled back time to understand what Putin was doing 40 years ago. One can make very deep analytical conclusions about how Biden could have become acquainted with him [at that time]."

And on the "dictator" remark, Peskov said that Putin "does not react and will not react” to insults such as what Biden just conveyed, and Peskov further expressed surprise that such "rhetoric and such expressions are employed regarding a head of state."

Young Putin as a KGB officer in 1980...

In reaction to Biden's confused claim, one commenter, Larry Boorstein, pointed out further that "Vladimir Putin graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1975. He joined the KGB that year and was assigned to Eastern Germany in 1985. Biden graduated Syracuse Law in 1968. It's unlikely their paths crossed 40 years ago."