[US President-elect Joe Biden with Russia's Putin in a file photo when the former was US Vice President during Obama's era.]
Moscow/Washington: Even as US President-elect Joe Biden is gearing up for the first round of cabinet picks slated to be held on Nov 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would not recognise the former as President till "election result" is "officially confirmed".
Talking to Russian steate TV, Putin said he is still not ready to recognise Joe Biden as the winner of the United States presidential election, but is ready to work with any other US leader.
"We will work with anyone who has the confidence of the American people," he said.
"But that confidence can only be given to a candidate whose victory has been recognised by the opposing party, or after the results are confirmed in a legitimate, legal way", he added.
The Russian President said that the decision to not congratulate Biden is 'a formality' with no ulterior motives.
He also said that he believes relations between the US and Russia have been 'ruined'.
When Trump won in 2016, Putin was prompt in offering congratulations, but Trump's challenger in that election, Hillary Clinton, also conceded the day after the vote.
Just days after the election was called in Biden's favour, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that this election is different.
Meanwhile, US President-elect Joe Biden's first wave of Cabinet picks are expected on November 24 amid the thick of ongoing obstruction to the political transition process from sitting president Donald Trump.
"You're going to see the first of the president-elect's cabinet appointments on Tuesday of this week," Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain told ABC News on Sunday.
Post-election, Biden has promised that his Cabinet will look like America and will be the most diverse in the country's modern political history.
Talk has been swirling about more glass ceilings that could be shattered. Will Biden nominate a woman to head the Pentagon, the Treasury or the Department of Veterans Affairs? Also being closely watched is whether Biden will pick an African American to head Defence, the Interior Department or Treasury.
Biden's running mate and now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is the first woman, the first South Asian and the first African American to ever ascend to the highest political office in the United States.
Biden said in televised remarks last week that he has already decided on his Treasury pick, someone who will be agreeable "for both the moderate and progressive sides of the party."
Klain said plans for the January 20 inauguration are also underway, although it will be transformed by the public health imperative of the still-raging pandemic, which has killed more than a quarter million Americans in 10 months.
"They're going to try to have an inauguration that honours the importance and the symbolic meaning of the moment, but also does not result in the spread of the disease. That's our goal," Klain said.
For all the latest News, Opinions and Views, download ummid.com App.
Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
