A Russian Foreign Ministry statement Monday referred to ``recent unacceptable statements'' by Biden about Putin. Biden referred to Putin last week as a ``war criminal'' in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Foreign Ministry says that at the meeting with US ambassador to Moscow John Sullivan ``it was emphasized that remarks such as these by the American President, which are unworthy of a state figure of such a high rank, put Russian-American relations on the verge of a breach.''