“Putin administration in Moscow is demanding that I, your humble correspondent, apologize for saying Old Vlad is a killer,” Bill O’Reilly said at the top of his Fox News Channel program tonight.

“So I am working on that apology but it may take a little time. Might want to check in with me around 2023,” O’Reilly snarked.

“If you’d like to know more about the violent history of Vladimir Putin, you might check out the book ‘iWar: War and Peace in the Information Age’,” O’Reilly suggested, helpfully.

O’Reilly’s “killer” remark ran during his interview with President Donald Trump in the run-up to the Super Bowl.

“He’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer,” O’Reilly noted during the interview. He made his remark after Trump said he respected Putin because leaders of countries deserve respect, in an apparent change in policy from Trump’s days as head of the birther movement.

During a call with reporters today, a rep for the Russian Federation demanded a formal apology from Fox News.

“We consider such words from a Fox correspondent are unacceptable, offensive. To be honest we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,” the Russian spokesman said on the call today.

Trump had come to Putin’s defense during the interview, shrugging off O’Reilly’s comment with, “What — you think our country’s so innocent?” He added, “Take a look at what we’ve done too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.”