莫斯科——俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京将会见总统乔·拜登在周三的一次峰会上，他暗示数百名因在美国国会大厦暴乱而被捕的人正受到“政治观点的迫害”

普京可能会在拜登在日内瓦的会议上受到拜登的强烈批评，因为他在俄罗斯采取了反对他的政治对手的行动，特别是监禁反对派领导人阿列克谢·纳瓦尔尼(Alexei Navalny)，拘留数千名抗议逮捕他的示威者，以及宣布纳瓦尔尼的组织为极端主义者是非法的。

“你把它说成是俄罗斯的异议和对异议的不容忍。我们对此的看法完全不同，”他在周一接受美国全国广播公司新闻广播采访时说。他接着指出了1月6日在华盛顿发生的暴动，当时抗议者闯入国会大厦试图停止计票以证明拜登的当选选举战胜唐纳德·特朗普。

“你知道450个人进入国会后被捕了吗?...他们带着政治要求来到这里，”他说。

尽管纳瓦尔尼1月份被捕后在俄罗斯各地爆发的抗议活动未获批准，但示威者基本上是和平的，没有进入政府大楼或造成重大财产损失，不像国会大厦暴乱那样。

普京还重申否认克里姆林宫是去年纳瓦尔尼被神经毒剂毒死的幕后黑手，那次毒剂差点害死他。

“我们没有这种暗杀任何人的习惯，”普京说。

“是你下令暗杀走进国会被警察开枪打死的女人的吗?”普京说，他指的是特朗普的支持者阿什丽·巴比特(Ashli Babbitt)，她在试图爬进通往众议院楼层的窗户时被一名国会警察开枪打死。

周一在布鲁塞尔北约峰会后的新闻发布会上，拜登拒绝评估他将如何衡量与普京会晤的成功，因为“任何人都不会在世界媒体面前进行谈判。”

拜登形容普京是“聪明”、“强硬”和“值得尊敬的对手”但他表示，他将对他们会议上做出的任何承诺保持警惕，并表示他将“首先核实，然后信任”俄罗斯领导人。

他还表示，他将寻找与俄罗斯总统达成一致的领域，同时警告他不要继续侵略美国。

他说:“我将向普京总统表明，如果他选择，我们可以在一些领域进行合作，如果他选择不合作，并且以他过去在网络安全和其他活动方面的方式行事，那么我们将做出回应，我们将做出同样的回应。”

在接受美国全国广播公司采访时，普京尖锐地驳斥了对美国的网络攻击指控，称其毫无根据。

“证据在哪里?证据在哪里?这变得很可笑，”普京说。“我们被指控了各种各样的事情——选举干涉、网络攻击等等——他们一次也没有，一次也没有，一次也没有，他们懒得拿出任何证据或证明，只是毫无根据的指控。”

今年4月，美国宣布驱逐10名俄罗斯外交官，并对所谓的太阳风网络攻击实施新的制裁，在这次攻击中，美国政府的几个分支机构经历了数据泄露。美国官员指责俄罗斯对外情报局。

今年5月，微软官员表示，外国情报机构似乎与一家为美国国际开发署提供服务的公司遭到袭击有关。

在峰会上，拜登预计还将提出两名被关押在俄罗斯的美国人的案件:保罗·惠兰(Paul Whelan)被判间谍罪，特雷弗·里德(Trevor Reed)被判酒后袭警罪。美国官员说，两人都是在证据不足的有偏见的审判中被定罪的。

普京这样评价29岁的前海军陆战队员里德:“他只是个酒鬼和麻烦制造者。”

普京在即将到来的峰会上消除了一个可能的紧张来源:拜登声称他曾经告诉普京，他认为俄罗斯领导人没有灵魂。

“我不记得我们谈话的这一部分，”普京说。

Putin likens Russian crackdown to arresting Capitol rioters

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is to meet PresidentJoe Bidenat a summit Wednesday, has suggested that the hundreds of people arrested for rioting at the U.S. Capitol are being subjected to “persecution for political opinions.”

Putin is likely to come under strong criticism from Biden at their meeting in Geneva for moves against his political opponents in Russia, particularly the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the detention of thousands of demonstrators protesting his arrest, and the outlawing of Navalny’s organizations as extremist.

“You are presenting it as dissent and intolerance toward dissent in Russia. We view it completely differently,” he said in an interview with NBC News broadcast Monday. He then pointed to the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington when protesters barged into the Capitol to try to halt the count of electoral votes to certify Biden’selectionvictory overDonald Trump.

“Do you know that 450 individuals were arrested after entering the Congress? ... They came there with political demands," he said.

Although the protests that erupted across Russia after Navalny's arrest in January were unsanctioned, demonstrators were largely peaceful and did not enter government buildings or cause significant property damage, unlike the Capitol riot.

Putin also reiterated denials that the Kremlin was behind last year's poisoning of Navalny with a nerve agent that nearly killed him.

“We don't have this kind of habit, of assassinating anybody,” Putin said.

“Did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into the Congress and who was shot and killed by a policeman?” Putin said, referring to Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a window that led to the House floor.

At a news conference after a NATO summit Monday in Brussels, Biden declined to assess how he’ll measure the success of his meeting with Putin because “the last thing anyone would do is negotiate in front of the world press.”

Biden described Putin as “bright,” “tough” and a “worthy adversary.” But he indicated he would remain wary of any commitments coming out of their meeting, saying he would “verify first and then trust” the Russian leader.

He also suggested he’d be looking for areas of agreement with the Russian president, while also warning him against continued aggression towards the U.S.

“I’m gonna make clear to President Putin that there are areas where we can cooperate, if he chooses, and if he chooses not to cooperate and acts in a way that he has in the past relative to cybersecurity and other activities, then we will respond, we will respond in kind,” he said.

In his NBC interview, Putin sharply dismissed the cyberattack allegations against the U.S. as baseless.

“Where is the evidence? Where is proof? It’s becoming farcical,” Putin said. “We have been accused of all kinds of things — election interference, cyberattacks and so on and so forth — and not once, not once, not one time, did they bother to produce any kind of evidence or proof, just unfounded accusations.”

In April, the United States announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and new sanctions connected to the so-called SolarWinds cyberattack in which several U.S. government branches experienced data breaches. U.S. officials blamed the Russian foreign intelligence service.

In May, Microsoft officials said the foreign intelligence service appeared to be linked to an attack on a company providing services to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

At the summit, Biden also is expected to raise the case of two Americans imprisoned in Russia: Paul Whelan, who was convicted of espionage, and Trevor Reed, convicted of assaulting police while drunk. U.S. officials say both were convicted in biased trials on flimsy evidence.

Putin said of Reed, a 29-year-old former Marine: “He's just a drunk and a troublemaker.”

Putin brushed off one possible source of tension in the upcoming summit: Biden's claim that he once told Putin he considered the Russian leader soulless.

"I do not remember this particular part of our conversations," Putin said.

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Associated Press writer Alexandra Jaffe in Washington contributed.