Joe Biden branded Vladimir Putin a butcher yesterday after meeting Ukrainian refugees as Russian troops continued to face fierce resistance.
The US president, speaking in Poland, appealed directly to the Russian people with comparisons between the invasion of Ukraine and the horrors of the Second World War as he called for Putin to go.
He said Putin, rather than ordinary Russians was to blame for the catastrophic invasion, saying: “For God’s sake this man cannot remain in power.” He told Russians they are not “our enemy” as he evoked the atrocities of the Nazi siege of Leningrad while making an impassioned defence of democracy.
In a direct message to the Ukrainian people, Biden said: “We stand with you.” Speaking after meeting refugees, Biden was asked what he thought of Putin, and described him as a “butcher”. The Kremlin responded soon after, saying the remark “further narrows possibilities for mending relations”.
The brave Ukrainian people are showing that the power of many is greater than the will of any one dictator. pic.twitter.com/Iij2ZkX234
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 27, 2022
Biden, who travelled to Europe for a Nato summit, had earlier met with government officials in Warsaw in a visit to show support for Poland over taking millions of refugees following Russia’s invasion.
In a searing attack on the Russian president, he said: “There is simply no justification or provocation for Russia’s choice of war.
“It’s an example of one of the oldest human impulses, using brute force and disinformation to satisfy a craving for absolute power and control.”
Speaking in front of Royal Castle, a landmark in Warsaw that was badly damaged in World War Two, Biden said: “These are not the actions of a great nation. Of all people, you the Russian people, as well as all people across Europe still have the memory of being in a similar situation in the ‘30s and ‘40s, the situation of the World War Two, still fresh in the mind of many grandparents in the region.”
“Whatever your generation experienced, whether it experienced the siege of Leningrad, or heard about it from your parents and grandparents, train stations overflowing with terrified families fleeing their homes, nights sheltering in basements and cellars, mornings sifting through the rubble in your home, these are not memories of the past, not any more, it’s exactly what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine right now.”
Biden said there was a long fight ahead in Russia’s war with Ukraine. He said: “In this battle, we need to be clear-eyed. This battle will not be won in days, or months either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.”
Speaking briefly after meeting the Ukrainian refugees, Biden was asked for his thoughts on Vladimir Putin, and described him as a “butcher”.
A reporter had asked him: “You’re dealing every day with Vladimir Putin, look at what he’s done to these people. What does it make you think?”
The Kremlin responded soon after, saying they “further narrow possibilities for mending relations”.
Biden, who travelled to Europe for a Nato summit, had earlier met with government officials in Warsaw in a visit to show support for Poland over taking millions of refugees following Russia’s invasion.
In a searing attack on the Russian president, Biden said: “There is simply no justification or provocation for Russia’s choice of war.
“It’s an example of one of the oldest human impulses, using brute force and disinformation to satisfy a craving for absolute power and control.”
In front of Royal Castle, a landmark in Warsaw that was badly damaged in the Second World War, Biden said: “These are not the actions of a great nation. Of all people, you the Russian people, as well as all people across Europe still have the memory of being in a similar situation in the 30s and 40s, the situation of the World War Two, still fresh in the mind of many grandparents in the region.
“Whatever your generation experienced, whether it experienced the siege of Leningrad, or heard about it from your parents and grandparents, train stations overflowing with terrified families fleeing their homes, nights sheltering in basements and cellars, mornings sifting through the rubble in your home, these are not memories of the past, not any more, it’s exactly what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine right now.”
Biden said there was a long fight ahead in Russia’s war with Ukraine. “In this battle, we need to be clear-eyed. This battle will not be won in days, or months either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.”
The president’s remarks came as intense fighting continued across the Ukraine.
Yesterday three huge explosions rocked the city of Lviv in the west of the country when an industrial fuel storage facility had been set on fire in a Russian bombardment. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continued attempts to retake the city of Kherson, the only Ukrainian city to fall to the Russians.
Russia continued to lose senior commanders with the death of Lt Gen Yakov Rezantsev, its seventh general to die, who was killed in a strike on an airbase near Kherson. Another senior officer, Colonel Yuri Medvedev, suffered serious leg injuries when he was deliberately run over by one of his own tank crews in protest at their treatment.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu, who had not been seen in public since March 11 sparking speculation that he had suffered ill health or punishment for the failing invasion, appeared in a new video uploaded to social media that appeared to suggest he was still in office.
More than 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded began, with two million of them in Poland.
Biden spent nearly an hour meeting with a series of refugees during a visit to World Central Kitchen, which is helping feed thousands of refugees.
Biden, who has promised further military aid to Ukraine, said: “To see all those little children just want a hug. They just want to say, ‘Thanks’. It just makes you so damn proud.”
He added: “Each one of those children said something in effect, say a prayer for my dad, or my grandfather, or my brother. He’s back there fighting. And I remember what it’s like when they have someone in a war zone. Every morning you get up and you wonder you just wondering and pray you don’t get that phone call.”
Biden also met his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, where the two leaders spoke of their mutual respect and shared goals to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden said he understood Poland was “taking on a big responsibility, but it should be all of Nato’s responsibility”.
The US president called the “collective defence” agreement of Nato a “sacred commitment”, and said the unity of the Western military alliance was of the utmost importance. “I’m confident Vladimir Putin was counting on dividing Nato. But he hasn’t been able to do it. We’ve all stayed together,” he said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has told the leaders of energy-rich nations at a summit in Doha in Qatar to increase oil production to help countries end their reliance on Russian supplies. He told them: “You can contribute to stabilising the situation in Europe.”
Despite Russian attempts to assassinate him, Zelensky was also out in Kyiv yesterday, at an awards ceremony for the national guard in the city.
Earlier he hailed his troops as having delivered “powerful blows” to Russia as he called for Moscow to negotiate an end to the month-long war. He said he was sceptical Putin no longer wanted to take over the country, but said it did appear “the enemy is focused on the eastern part of Ukraine”.
Zelensky claimed in his Friday night address more than 16,000 Russian troops had been killed in the conflict. But he insisted he would not give up sovereign territory. “Our defenders are leading the Russian leadership to a simple and logical idea: we must talk, talk meaningfully, urgently and fairly,” he said.
Moscow gave its first indication it could scale back its offensive when it said the “special military operation” would now focus on the “main goal, liberation of Donbas”, in the east of Ukraine.
Western officials said the statement was a recognition by Russia that its forces were overstretched and may have to pause operations around Kyiv and other cities while they focus on the east of the country.
“It is clear Russia is recognising it can’t pursue its operations on multiple axes simultaneously,” one official said. “Therefore it is having to concentrate its force, particularly its logistics supply and its firepower, on a more limited number of approaches.”
But Markian Lubkivskyi, an adviser to the Ukrainian ministry of defence, said he was sceptical about Moscow’s statement hinting at a scaling back of its operations.
Lubkivskyi said: “We cannot believe the statements from Moscow because there’s still a lot of untruth and lies from that side. That’s why we understand the goal of Putin still is the whole of Ukraine. We can see now that the enemy is focused on the eastern part of Ukraine but we are ready for any kind of attacks in different Ukrainian places.”
Lubkivskyi also predicted Ukrainian troops could take back Kherson, in the south-east, the first major city that Russian forces seized. He said: “I believe that today the city will be fully under the control of Ukrainian armed forces.
“We have finished in the last two days the operation in the Kyiv region so other armed forces are now focused on the southern part trying to get free Kherson and some other Ukrainian cities.”
Yesterday Russian forces left the town of Slavutycha, where workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant live, after freeing the mayor they had kidnapped.
He was let go after a mass protest by residents. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, a governor of the Kyiv region in which Slavutych sits, said they took to the streets with Ukrainian flags to protest the Russian invasion and the kidnapping.
“The Russians opened fire into the air. They threw flash-bang grenades into the crowd. But the residents did not disperse. On the contrary, more of them showed up,” Pavlyuk said.
According to the latest Ministry of Defence intelligence briefing, Russian forces are “proving reluctant to engage in large-scale urban infantry operations”, instead preferring to “rely on the indiscriminate use of air and artillery bombardments in an attempt to demoralise defending forces”.
Nato estimates that in four weeks of fighting, between 7,000 and 15,000 Russia troops have been killed in combat, compared to the 15,000 they lost in 10 years in Afghanistan.
But the Russian invasion has also been devastating to Ukraine. According to the World Health Organisation, there have been 72 attacks by Russia on hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine, killing 71 people and injury 37.
In the besieged city of Mariupol, it was confirmed 300 people died in a Russian air strike on a theatre where hundreds of people were sheltering. Ukraine now estimates that up to 20,000 civilians have died in the fighting in the city.
UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has signed new powers to seize two private jets worth tens of millions of pounds belonging to sanctioned Russian billionaire Eugene Shvidler.
“Putin’s friends who made millions out of his regime will not enjoy luxuries whilst innocent people die,” said Shapps.
The UK is also to provide £2m in food aid to areas in Ukraine encircled by Russia.
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