Russia hasn’t contacted Joe Biden’s team & remains upset about ‘ugly behavior’ of 2016 White House — Deputy FM

Russia has made no contact with representatives of Joe Biden, and has no plans to get in touch. Earlier this week, the Kremlin announced it was holding off on congratulations until official confirmation.

"We have not had any contacts with representatives and staff of Joseph Biden," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, speaking to news agency TASS. "We treat this as a change in weather outside the window."

In 2016, following US President Donald Trump's election, the then-US government engaged in “ugly behavior… disregarding not just ethics, but common sense,” Ryabkov said. As the vice president, Biden was the second most senior member of the White House team at the time of the vote. Therefore, Moscow intends to refrain from establishing contacts with the Biden team for the time being.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that President Vladimir Putin would not congratulate Biden on winning the US presidential election until the results are confirmed. Unlike many Western leaders, Putin did not send his best wishes to the Democratic nominee once the US media called the result on Sunday.

“Anticipating your possible question about Putin's congratulations to the US president-elect, I want to say the following: we consider it proper to wait for the official results,” Peskov said.

The US presidential election was held on November 3. According to mainstream US media estimates, Biden will easily beat incumbent Trump. Due to slow counting and the high number of mail-in ballots received, the official vote tally is not yet known. Despite the overwhelming consensus, the sitting president has refused to admit defeat, accusing the Democrats of wide scale fraud.

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