Putin Won’t Congratulate Winner of US Election Until Legal Challenges Settled
Russian President Vladimir Putin is waiting for official results from the U.S. presidential election before congratulating the winner, a Kremlin spokesperson said.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that while the Kremlin hopes “to build dialogue with the next U.S. president” and seek ways to boost bilateral relations, Putin will wait to congratulate the president-elect after legal challenges are settled and the election results become official.
“Anticipating your possible question about congratulations from [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to the U.S. president-elect, I want to say the following: we consider it correct to wait for the official results of the elections to be announced,” Peskov said, according to Russian news agency Tass.
Asked about why Putin was choosing to wait while he was quick to congratulate Trump on his 2016 victory, Peskov said no legal challenges were mounted to the election result four years ago.
“There [in the United States] they are facing certain legal procedures that were announced by the incumbent president, which makes this situation different. So we deem it as correct to wait for the official announcement,” Peskov said.
While some world leaders have been quick to congratulate former Vice President Joe Biden when he was declared on Saturday as president-elect after projected victories in Pennsylvania and Nevada put him over the 270 electoral vote threshold, others have been more reticent. European allies who clashed with Trump over defense and trade issues, notably Germany and France, were among the first to congratulate Biden. Conservative leaders in Hungary and Slovenia, who have been vocal in the past in their support for Trump, have not.
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