Russian President Vladimir Putin poked at his friend President Donald Trump for failing to handle the United States COVID-19 outbreak, the Daily Mail reported.
Speaking to state TV, Putin claimed that the country had experienced fewer cases than the top-ranked United States.
"We are exiting the coronavirus situation steadily with minimal losses, God willing, in the States, it isn't happening that way," Putin said.
He went on to say that the coronavirus pandemic had exposed a "deep-seated internal crises" in the US. While most would agree that the "internal crisis" has to do with the healthcare system in the country, Putin meant it as a political problem.
"The president says we need to do such-and-such but the governors somewhere tell him where to go," said Putin about Trump's weakness as a leader. "I think the problem is that group interests, party interests are put higher than the interests of the whole of society and the interests of the people."
He went on to claim that Trump is putting politics ahead of the health and safety of the American people.
Trump has put "party interests higher than the interests of the people," he said before accusing Trump of a lack of leadership on the issue.
Russia has seen a massive rate of coronavirus cases, totaling 528,964 virus cases but they have only had 6,948 deaths, a 1.3 percent fatality rate for the virus. The United States, by contrast, has had 2,103,750 COVID-19 cases and has experienced 115,896 deaths, a fatality rate of 5.5 percent, John's Hopkins reported.
While the Russian numbers are lower than the United States, there has been some speculation about the accuracy of the reporting because Russia's healthcare system is far less stable than the United States.
"I think it's safe to say that if you multiply official death count by a factor of three, you will get a more or less true picture," NPR quoted independent demographer Aleksei Raksha. "I work with numbers, and numbers tell me what's going on, not people."
