MOSCOW   -  The Kremlin said Monday it had noted the “unfriendly rhetoric” against Russia used by US Vice President, Kamala Harris, the frontrunner to replace Joe Biden in the US presidential election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said previously that Moscow would prefer Biden over Donald Trump, calling the Democrat “more predictable.”

Asked what the Kremlin made of Harris now looking likely to become the Democrats’ candidate, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “There have been some statements which were full of unfriendly rhetoric towards our country.” He did specify what comments he was referring to. Harris, like Biden, has been a staunch backer of Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale military offensive in February 2022. Earlier this year she said the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison was “a further sign of Putin’s brutality.” She has also called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “horrendous atrocities,” “gruesome,” “barbaric,” and “inhumane.”

Peskov said Monday that Moscow could not “assess Harris’s potential candidacy from the point of view of our bilateral relations, because so far we have not noticed her contribution to our bilateral relations.” Other than her “unfriendly” statements, Peskov said: “We have not recorded anything she’s done in terms of our bilateral relations, either positively or negatively.” Biden on Sunday endorsed Harris to replace him in the presidential election, shortly after he announced he was dropping out with under four months to go until the vote.