Hillary Clinton needled Vladimir Putin over Nato enlargement as she returned to the state department for the unveiling of her official portrait on Tuesday night.
By early Wednesday morning, the Kremlin had fired back, reminding Clinton of an old gaffe about US-Russian relations.
Clinton used the occasion of her portrait unveiling to express disapproval for Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
The former US secretary of state and Democratic candidate for president, who was beaten by Trump in 2016, suggested that there may have been questions about the US’s ability to muster support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion because of Trump’s legacy of alienating allies.
“People might have doubted that because we had burned so many bridges with our allies and our friends,” she told current and former officials attending the event.
“Reinstating a foreign policy … that actually brings people to us, not pushes them away, would have been thought to be extremely difficult. And indeed it was, but it was accomplished,” she added, thanking the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, for “helping to restore America’s standing”.
Clinton said Joe Biden has pursued many of the priorities of the Obama administration, in which she was the top US diplomat and he served as vice-president to Barack Obama.
“Defending democracy in Ukraine, expanding Nato – just as an aside, too bad Vladimir, you brought it on yourself,” she said, referring to the fact that Nato is growing post-invasion, and prompting laughter and applause.
“We always said, ‘People are not forced to join Nato. People choose and want to join Nato,’” she added. Ukraine also aspires to become a member of the western defense organization.
Clinton described what she saw as common Biden and Obama priorities of “expanding Nato, facing down Russian aggression and managing the challenges from China”.
The Kremlin on Wednesday hit back by reminding her of her gaffe when she sought to “reset” relations with Russia with a button mislabelled in translation as “overload”.
Asked about her Tuesday remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Clinton was known in Russia for her 2009 gaffe when a symbolic button designed to mark a “reset” of US-Russia ties was instead labelled “overload” in Russian.
“It is clear that this was probably not a deliberate mistake, but very telling,” Peskov said.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting
