Joe Biden said Vladimir Putin expected his enemies to ‘roll over’ when he invaded Ukraine but was met with the ‘iron will’ of his allies – as the Russian president suspended a key nuclear treaty with states United after accusing the West of starting the war.
The American president gave a highly anticipated speech from the gardens of the Royal Castle in Warsaw hours after Putin gave a state of the nation address in Russia.
Mr. Biden was speaking in the Polish capital the day after he did his highly confidential and historic visit to Kiev in Ukraine.
“I can report: Kyiv is strong, Kyiv is proud, it is tall, and most importantly, it is free,” Biden said Tuesday night.
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‘Freedom, there is no sweeter word’
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Mr. Putin he had previously accused the West of starting the war in Ukraine and said his country had responded with force “to stop it”.
He added that Ukraine was in talks with the West about arms supplies before Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24 last year.
“I would like to point out that when Russia tried to find a peaceful solution, it was playing with people’s lives and it was playing a dirty game,” Putin said.
Biden says ‘democracy was too strong’
Both leaders gave speeches presenting sharply conflicting views on the war as the first anniversary of the Russian invasion approaches.
Biden used his speech to repeatedly accuse Putin of underestimating Ukraine and NATO’s strength before ordering the full-scale offensive.
The US president said: “When Russia invaded it wasn’t just Ukraine that was tested, the whole world faced a test for centuries…all democracies were tested.
“The questions we faced were as simple as they were profound. Would we answer them or would we look the other way?
“Would we be strong or would we be weak?”
photo: AP
Biden continued: “A year later we know the answer.
“We replied, we would be strong, we would be united and the world would not look the other way.”
Biden said, “President Putin ordered his tanks into Ukraine, he thought we would roll over. He was wrong.
“The Ukrainian people were too brave. America, Europe, a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we were too united.
“Democracy was too strong. Instead of the easy victory he sensed and predicted, Putin walked away with burnt-out tanks and Russian forces in disarray.
“He thought he was going to get the Finnishization of NATO, but he got the Finnishization of Finland and Sweden.”
The term Finlandization has been used to refer to a country’s decision not to challenge a more powerful neighbor in foreign policy while retaining national sovereignty.
“The autocrats have weakened”
“He thought NATO would fracture and divide. Instead, NATO was tighter and more united than ever,” Biden continued.
“He thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft, and then he encountered the iron will of America and nations around the world who refused to accept a world ruled by fear and force.”
Biden added, “President Putin is faced with something today that he didn’t think was possible a year ago.
“The world’s democracies have gotten stronger, not weaker, but the world’s autocrats have gotten weaker, not stronger.”
Biden also said Russia has committed “aberrant” crimes in Ukraine by targeting civilians with “death and destruction” and has used rape as a “weapon of war.”
He also accused Russian forces of stealing Ukrainian babies and bombing maternity hospitals and orphanages.
Biden also said that US support for Ukraine will never wane.
Biden, the Cold War warrior, is on a mission to build on the success of his visit to Kiev
As publicized by White House officials, this speech was about Ukraine but also about “the broader competition at play between those aggressors who are trying to destroy basic principles and those democracies who are coming together to try to back it up.”
This was Joe Biden, the Cold War warrior and statesman whose lifelong belief in those tenets of freedom and democracy took him all the way to war-torn Kiev this week.
He recalled the WWII freedom struggles in this city and pledged that his example would inspire the battles of the West today.
“The appetites of autocrats must not be appeased. They must be thwarted.”
His mission now rests on that extraordinary surprise visit and to rally allies and maintain solidarity and unity as we pass the sad milestone of the first anniversary of the unprovoked invasion of Russia.
Russia says the West ‘released the genie from the bottle’
In his speech a few hours before Biden’s, Putin said that Russia had decided to “protect its people and its history” by conducting “a step-by-step special military operation” – while warning that Moscow “will continue to solve the goals that are us first”.
The Russian president has always called the invasion a “special military operation” since it began last year.
“I would like to repeat, they started the war and we used force to stop it,” he said.
To know more:
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Putin’s State of the Nation address
Putin also announced that Russia would suspend its participation in a major nuclear treaty with the United States that limits the two sides’ strategic nuclear arsenals.
The New START treaty limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy.
Putin has said that Russia is not withdrawing from the treaty outright and that Moscow must be ready to resume nuclear weapons testing if the United States does.
The Russian president took aim at the West and said he had “released the genie from the bottle” in the 10 years leading up to the war, starting others.
He said Western countries were portraying Russia as an enemy of the state to divert attention from corruption and socio-economic problems in their own countries.
On weapons, Putin also said the West was “in talks” about the “supply of heavy military equipment, aircraft and anti-aircraft missile systems” before the operation began.
Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev
Although Russian forces have suffered three major battlefield reversals since the start of the war, they still control about a fifth of Ukraine.
In his extensive speech, the Russian president also said that millions of people in the West are “led to a real spiritual catastrophe”, criticizing “the Anglican Church’s plan to consider the idea of a gender-neutral God”.
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In his visit to the Ukrainian capital on Monday, Biden said Washington would provide Kiev with a new military aid package worth $500m (£413m) as he walked the city with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Biden said Putin had believed Ukraine was “weak and the West was divided” and “thought he could outlast us,” but added, “he was very wrong.”
Zelenskyy said he had discussed long-range weapons with Biden and described the negotiations as “very fruitful”.
