MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he does not judge US leader Joe Biden for pardoning his son Hunter.

"As for Biden, he is a politician. And it always matters whether you are more a politician or a man. It turned out that there is more of a man in Biden. I would not judge him for this," Putin said to a question on the subject at an end-of-year news conference.

According to the president, there are similar examples in Russian history.

"Everyone knows full well the painting of Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan. We all know, whether it is a legend or not, just as what happened to Peter the Great's son, Alexey, or to Stalin - it is not a legend. When Stalin refused an offer to swap his son Yakov, who was in captivity, for Field Marshal Paulus, he said that, 'I do not change a soldier for a marshal.' <...> At that time the country was facing not a possible defeat, but a possible total destruction, not only of the country, but of our entire people, and then it was a question of the survival of the ethnos, the nation, and the measures of the struggle for victory were harsh, if not cruel, given this mood in society <...> it did not give him the opportunity to save his son. He said what he said and did what he did, as we know. His son was executed in a camp and Paulus was used at the Nuremberg trials. When he entered the hall, everyone gasped, as no one expected to see him there," Putin said.

The US president announced on December 1 that he had pardoned his son. The pardon covers the period from January 1, 2014 to December 1, 2024 and two trials in the states of Delaware and California. In California, the US leader's son pleaded guilty to failing to pay taxes. US President-elect Donald Trump called Hunter Biden's pardon an abuse of power and a violation of justice.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Joe Biden's decision to pardon his son represented a caricature of democracy. Hunter Biden is the son of Joe Biden and his first wife Neilia, who died in a car accident in 1972. Jill Biden raised Hunter from an early age.