French President Emmanuel Macron has said that he would refrain from uttering such stern language such as was recently used by POTUS regarding Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"I would not use those words", Macron told the broadcaster France 3 on Sunday, referring to US President Joe Biden branding Putin a "butcher" on Saturday hours before claiming that the Russian president "cannot remain in power".
Referring to Moscow's ongoing special military operation in Ukraine, the French president also said that he sees his task as "achieving first a ceasefire and then the total withdrawal of [Russian] troops [from Ukraine] by diplomatic means".
"If we want to do that, we can't escalate either in words or actions", Macron cautioned, adding that he will again get in touch with Putin in the immediate future.
Peskov Slams Biden's Remarks as Unacceptable
He spoke after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last week that Biden's statements are already becoming personal insults aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last Wednesday, when asked whether he would call Putin a "war criminal" Biden first responded in the negative, but after a pause changed his mind. In another development last week, POTUS did not think twice before calling the Russian president a "murderous dictator" and "a pure thug".
Peskov described the remarks as unacceptable and unforgivable for the president of a country that had killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world with its bombs.
"We really hear statements that are actually already personal insults against President Putin. These statements are actually coming from the president of the United States of America, Mr Biden, on a daily basis", Peskov said.
According to him, the Kremlin puts Biden's words about Putin down to the irritability and forgetfulness of the US president due to exhaustion.
"Given such irritability of Mr Biden, his fatigue, sometimes forgetfulness, which leads to aggressive statements, we will not give sharp assessments so as not to cause more aggression", Peskov said when asked whether the Kremlin regarded it as a prerequisite for breaking off diplomatic relations with the United States.
Russia's Special Op in Ukraine
The Russian president ordered the start of a special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February following a request from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) to protect them from intensifying attacks by Ukrainian forces.
Putin stated that Russia was left with no other choice but to intervene to help the newly-recognised Donbass republics. He described the goals of the operation as the demilitarisation and de-Nazification of Ukraine, with Russia's Defence Ministry pledging that the Russian armed forces will only be targeting Ukraine's military infrastructure with high-precision weapons strikes.