Kremlin demands apology over 'killer' comment about Putin

The Kremlin says itwants an apology from Fox News over what it calls "unacceptable" comments made by one of the channel's presenters about Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview with U.S.counterpart Donald Trump.

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly described Putin as "a killer" inthe interview with Trump as he tried to press the U.S. presidentto explain more fully why he respected his Russian counterpart.

O'Reilly did not say who he thought Putin had killed.

"We consider such words from the Fox TV company to beunacceptable and insulting, and honestly speaking, we wouldprefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,"Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday on a conferencecall.

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Fox News and O'Reilly did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, but O'Reillyaddressed the request on his show Monday night.

"I'm working on that apology," O'Reilly told viewers. "But it may take a little time. You might want to check in with me around 2023."

Trump's views on Putin are closely scrutinized in the UnitedStates, where intelligence agencies have accused Moscow ofhaving sponsored computer hacking to help Trump win office andcritics say he is too complimentary about the Russian leader.

When commenting on the allegations against Putin inthe same interview, Trump questioned how "innocent" the United Statesitself was, saying it had made a lot of its own mistakes.

"There are a lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers," he said. "What do you think? Our country's so innocent?

'Probably' authorized murder

Thatirritated some congressional Republicans who said there was nocomparison between how Russian and U.S. politicians behaved.

"Putin'sa former KGB agent. He's a thug. He was not elected in a way that most people would consider a credible election," Republican Senate Majority LeaderMitchMcConnell told CNN'sState of the Union.

"The Russians annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine and messed around in our elections. And no, I don't think there's any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does."

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Putin, in his 17th year of dominating the Russian politicallandscape, is accused by some Kremlin critics of ordering thekilling of opponents. Putin and the Kremlin have repeatedlyrejected those allegations as politically motivated and false.

Trump, who has said he wants to try to mend batteredU.S.-Russia ties, wasasked a question about some of those allegations by Fox Businessbefore he won the White House.

In January 2016, after a British judge ruled that Putinhad "probably" authorized the murder of former KGB agentAlexander Litvinenko in London, Trump said he saw no evidencethe Russian president was guilty.

"First of all, he says he didn't do it. Many people say itwasn't him. So who knows who did it?" Trump said.

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