President Biden on Monday stood by his comment that Vladimir V. Putin should not remain President of Russia, but he said it was an expression of his own horror over the invasion of Ukraine and not a change in American policy aimed at seeking to remove Mr. Putin from office.
“I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it,” Biden told reporters at the White House, rejecting criticism from around the globe in the last two days about the potential diplomatic consequences of his words. The President said no one should have interpreted his comments as calling for Putin’s ouster.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said of the questions about his speech in Warsaw on Saturday, when he said, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” On Monday, Biden said: “Nobody believes I was talking about taking down Putin. Nobody believes that.”
The fallout over Biden’s words in Warsaw underscored the dilemma that he and the Nato allies face about how to condemn the war in Ukraine and pressure Russia without shutting down any relationship with Moscow that might help end the invasion.
The West will also have to decide whether Moscow would be allowed back into the global economy, whether to lift sanctions and how to resume diplomatic relations if Russia pulls back its forces.
Biden’s remark drew some praise for its toughness and clarity but also warnings from lawmakers and President Emmanuel Macron of France, who said on Sunday that “I wouldn’t use this kind of words” when asked about Biden’s speech. Macron said he hoped to obtain a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine through diplomacy.
Some critics said Biden’s declaration could make it more difficult to negotiate an end to the five-week-old war, which has killed thousands in Ukraine and driven millions from their homes.
iden insisted on Monday that was not the case, although Putin has told Russians for years that he believes the US and the CIA are conspiring to remove him from power. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that Biden’s statement “makes us worry” and that the Kremlin would “continue to closely monitor” the President’s remarks.
In his speech in Warsaw, Biden tried to draw a distinction between Putin’s actions and those of the Russian people, who he said were not responsible for the atrocities being committed by the country’s military in Ukraine each day. He suggested that Russian controls on TV and the Internet had left the country’s citizens unaware of the truth.
“Vladimir Putin’s aggression have cut you, the Russian people, off from the rest of the world, and it’s taking Russia back to the 19th century,” he said.
Moments later, he proclaimed that “a dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people’s love for liberty” before declaring that Putin should go.
The White House appeared to rapidly understand that Biden’s words could be seen as a reversal of the administration’s long-stated position that it was not seeking regime change in Russia. It took just minutes for officials to back away from Biden’s comments on Saturday evening.
On Sunday, secretary of state Antony Blinken told journalists in Jerusalem that “we do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else, for that matter”. On Monday, his first comments on the matter, Biden insisted his statement had been misinterpreted.
New York Times News Service
