“For God’s sake, this man can’t stay in power,” Biden says of Putin
“Battle for Ukraine will not be won in days or months”
In view of the Ukraine war and the tensions on the eastern NATO border, US President Joe Biden traveled to Poland. Listen to his speech, which the White House has heralded as “historic”.
US President Joe Biden assumes that a long struggle between democracy and autocracy will have to be waged as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In a speech in Warsaw, he stressed that Vladimir Putin “must not stay in power”.
uS President Joe Biden has sworn the world into a long conflict between democracy and autocracy. It is about a “great battle between democracy and autocracy, between freedom and oppression, between a rule-based order and one that is determined by brute force,” said Biden in a speech in Warsaw on Saturday evening. “We have to be clear about this: This battle will not be fought in days or in months. We have to steel ourselves for a long fight.”
One must recognize how great the threat emanating from Russia is. The West must stick to its consistent answer. This is the only way to persuade Russia to change course. “We are targeting the heart of Russia’s economy,” he said of the sanctions against the country. “The ruble is worth nothing in relation to the dollar.”
Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of lying about his intentions. Putin has repeatedly emphasized that he does not want to attack Ukraine. “There were only lies. Like from a vending machine,” said Biden. He emphasized that the responsibility for the war lies with the state leadership: “The Russian people are not our enemy.”
Putin pushed Russia back into the 19th century. “This is not the future that Russia deserves.” The hopes and dreams of people around the world are threatened. The Russian president miscalculated his attack and the Ukrainian army put up stronger resistance than expected. NATO and the West are now “more united” than ever before. Democracy in the world is awakening to new life.
Biden went on to say that Putin should no longer remain in office. “For God’s sake, this man cannot stay in power,” said the US President, without explicitly mentioning the Russian President by name at this point. In his speech, however, Biden named Putin several times, and at times he simply referred to him as a “dictator.”
However, the White House immediately tried to put the statement into perspective. A US official said Biden said Putin should not exercise power over neighbors or over the region.
Biden delivered what was announced as a historic speech at the end of his two-day trip to Poland. He had previously assured Poland that NATO would remain loyal to the alliance. “We consider Article 5 to be a sacred obligation, and you can count on that,” Biden said at a meeting with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Saturday. He assumes that Russian President Vladimir Putin “expected to be able to split NATO, to be able to separate the east flank from the west,” Biden said. But he wasn’t able to do that.
During his visit to Poland, Biden also thanked the country for accepting refugees from Ukraine. “We recognize that Poland is taking on a great responsibility, which I believe should not only concern Poland. It should be the responsibility of the whole world, of all NATO,” the US President said on Saturday. The US government recently announced that it intends to take in up to 100,000 Ukrainians. Almost 2.27 million people from Ukraine have entered Poland so far.
Biden visited Warsaw’s National Stadium on Saturday afternoon to get an impression of the relief effort for refugees and to speak to Ukrainians himself. Videos showed him talking to refugees. For example, he held a child longer in his arms, and he put his hands on a woman’s shoulders to comfort him. Biden said he spoke to several children who asked him to pray for their fathers, grandfathers or brothers who were fighting in Ukraine.
“He’s a butcher,” Biden says of Putin
He met “wonderful people” here, said Biden. Among them were two refugees from the embattled south-east Ukrainian town of Mariupol. When a journalist then asked him what he thought of Putin given the fate of the refugees, Biden said: “He is a butcher.” Biden had previously described Putin as a “war criminal”.
Before his meeting with Duda, Biden had also consulted with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov. They had met their respective US counterparts in Warsaw – Biden attended the meeting for about 40 minutes. Biden’s participation in ministerial-level talks is unusual and suggested that Biden wanted to send a message of solidarity for Ukraine. On Friday, Biden traveled to Rzeszow in southeastern Poland and visited US troops stationed there. The city is only around 90 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.