Biden accuses Russia of interfering in 2022 American elections

Referring to the secret daily report prepared by the intelligence community for him, Biden said: “Consider what Russia is already doing in connection with the 2022 elections and deinformation. ”

Such actions from Moscow are a <x0-scalm of our sovereignty”, the president said, without further questioning, in his comments to about 120 representatives of the American intelligence community who gathered in northern Virginia at the ODNI headquarters.

President Biden's public reference to something that is the presidential secret of the day will surely cause reactions.

He's president. He can declassify anything he wants, said Emily Harding, deputy director of the international security programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

And I'm not sure it'll be shocking to anyone that Russia is considering the possibility of disinformation for the 2022 elections. I think it's a really good reminder that Russia continues to do this and that nothing has discouraged them yet”, she said.

The president also had an ominous prediction about the escalation of cyber attacks targeting the United States, for which his administration has blamed state-backed hackers in China and those who act unpunished in Russia.

President Biden said he believes that more and more likely the United States of “could end up in an open fight with a great force of”, as a result of cyber attacks.

The cyber skills of opponents of the United States “are increasing exponentially”, the American president said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to be very much in Mr. Biden's mind during his comments to the intelligence community.

Putin has <x0 nuclear weapons, oil wells and nothing else”, said Preisdent Biden, adding that the Russian leader knows he is in real economic trouble, “which makes him even more dangerous”.

Beden also praised the American intelligence community for its superiority of his counterparts in Moscow.

Putin “knows you're better than his team. And that worries him very much”, President Biden said.

“I see how this can spur a reaction from Moscow”, Harding told the Voice of America.

President Biden referred to Russia and China as “the deadly competition of the future”.

In his comments, the American president said Chinese President Xi Jinping “is very serious in trying to make China the world's greatest military and economic power” in the mid-2040s.

Beden made several references to the hypersonic weapons of opponents. But he stopped by saying that “I don't know, we probably have some people in the room without biographies checked for this kind of information”. In fact, a group of White House journalists were present, and a television camera was recording the talk on behalf of the media.

The president also called on his intelligence team, which consists of 17 different agencies, “to report reality as it is. I'm not looking for a fun show. When you are not sure, say you are not sure”.

President Biden said that “cannot make the right decisions unless you give me your best, impartial and unprejudiced assessments. I'm not trying to hear nice things. I want what you think is the truth. ”

Those words are a big thing <x0. That's what he probably mostly needed to say” for this particular audience, says analyst Harding.

President Biden stressed that intelligence agencies should not be influenced by the political party controlling Congress or the White House. He said it's <x0Jetic that you are completely free of any political pressure or party influence”.

President Biden pledged that during his mandate he will not try to “amend or change your judgments on what you think about the situations we face. I will never politicise the work you do. I promise. This is very important for our country. ”

The 46th president's visit to ODNI was intended, in part, to demonstrate a different relationship with the intelligence community from what this community had with its predecessor, Donald Trump.

“I think you can all make a clear contrast”, the White House spokeswoman told reporters the day before.

The former President Trump's stance on the intelligence community was publicly irritated after he took to Putin's side over the US government's report that the Kremlin had intervened in the 2016 presidential elections. Republican Donald Trump defeated with a close result Democrat rival Hillary Clinton in that election. / VOA