‘It’s a mistake’: Zelenskyy says he can ‘forget’ Biden’s Putin mix-up
Al Jazeera
Ukrainian leader brushes off US president’s mistaken reference to him as ‘President Putin’ as he meets Ireland’s Harris.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has played down US President Joe Biden’s recent gaffe at a NATO summit where he introduced the Ukrainian leader as “President Putin”, saying it was a “mistake” that could now be forgotten.
“It’s a mistake. I think United States gave a lot of support for Ukrainians. We can forget some mistakes, I think so,” the Ukrainian president told reporters after touching down at Ireland’s Shannon airport on Saturday.
Zelenskyy is visiting Irish leader Simon Harris on his way back from the summit in Washington marking NATO’s 75th anniversary, where 81-year-old Biden made his faux pas on Thursday.
The US president, under intense scrutiny over his ability to stand for another term in office in this year’s US presidential election, stumbled while announcing a NATO-Ukraine compact, mistakenly referring to Zelenskyy as “President Putin” as he handed him the stage.
Though Biden quickly corrected himself, exclaiming that the Ukrainian leader was actually going to “beat” Putin, the incident drew more attention to his age and speculation about his mental acuity, coming weeks after a disastrous performance in the inaugural 2024 presidential debate opposite Republican rival Donald Trump.
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