Sean Gallup/Getty Images Putin says Washington bears a 'certain responsibility' for Khashoggi

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday appeared to hold the United States partially accountable for the case of Washington Post journalist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi, who vanished after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and is believed to have been killed.

Moscow, like Washington, has been reserved in its response to the gruesome Khashoggi case, with Putin saying he would rather wait for the evidence before taking any action on the matter. That's a position that President Donald Trump has also appeared to take, as homegrown pressure mounts on the administration to find answers and punish Saudi Arabia for Khashoggi's rumored death.


Trump has hinted that Khashoggi's status as a non-U.S. citizen may exonerate the administration from imposing punitive measures on Riyadh, even though Khashoggi had recently lived in Virginia.

"As far as I know, the journalist who went missing used to live in the USA. He did not live in Russia. In this regard the U.S. has a certain responsibility," Putin said, according to the Financial Times. "If someone knows what happens and there was a murder, I hope some evidence is provided. And dependent on that, we will make some decisions."

Putin appeared to use the case of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian spy who was poisoned in the United Kingdom, to say that Russia had to wait for more facts on the Khashoggi case before potentially spoiling ties with the Middle Eastern kingdom. Britain has said the Skripal attack was carried out by agents of the Russian military intelligence, which Putin has denied.

“[Khashoggi] was connected to certain circles in power," Putin said. "We do not know what happened in reality. So why should we undertake any steps to deteriorate our relations with Saudi Arabia?"

Putin's remarks drew immediate condemnation from Samantha Power, the ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama.

"Putin says a single approach to incidents like Skirpal & Khashoggi needed. How about the don’t-murder-your-critics approach?" Power wrote online.