‘Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia.’ Biden delivers rallying cry in Warsaw after combative Putin speech
President Joe Biden vowed Tuesday that Russia would never defeat Ukraine and reaffirmed Western support for Kyiv just hours after the Kremlin said it would suspend participation in the last remaining nuclear-arms treaty with the United States.
In a speech marking the grim first anniversary of Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine, Biden praised Poland and other Western allies for funneling weapons, artillery and billions in aid that have helped a resilient Kyiv fend off Russian forces.
“One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden said at Warsaw’s Royal Castle. “I can report that Kyiv stands strong, it stands proud and it stands free.”
Thousands of people huddled together and brandished Ukrainian, Polish and American flags at the castle where Biden last spoke in March, days after Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border and launched Europe’s biggest land war since World War II. Speaking to a much smaller crowd then, he struck a somber tone and said of Russian President Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
Nearly a year later, Biden praised Ukraine’s resolve as a triumph of democracy and proclaimed that Putin’s aims to capture Kyiv, overtake the country and fracture the NATO alliance remained out of reach.
“There should be no doubt: Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire,” he said. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia — never.”
The speech echoed his comments a day earlier in Kyiv, where he made an unannounced visit to show U.S. solidarity and announce $500 million in new aid for Ukraine. He strolled the streets of the besieged country’s capital city with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as air-raid sirens blared, a risky feat that required a covert, predawn flight and a 10-hour, overnight train ride.
Earlier Tuesday, in a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda, Biden called the NATO alliance “maybe the most consequential alliance in history,” and said it is “stronger than it’s ever been” despite Putin’s desire to weaken the defense pact.
The president and Duda are due to meet other leaders of the Bucharest Nine — the eastern flank of NATO members — on Wednesday.
Biden’s speech in the Polish capital presented a study in contrasts to a pugnacious address hours earlier by Putin, who said he was suspending cooperation in the New START nuclear-nonproliferation agreement, the sole remaining arms-control treaty between Washington and Moscow.
While Biden lauded Western unity in confronting Russia over its unprovoked attack on a smaller neighbor, Putin insisted that Moscow had not initiated the conflict last Feb. 24, when Russian troops poured across the Ukrainian border.
“They were the ones who started the war,” the Russian leader said of Ukraine and its Western allies.
Putin accused Washington and its European partners of military and economic aggression, saying Moscow was left with no choice but to respond. His speech was, in part, intended to defend the war effort against festering domestic discontent. But it was unclear whether he made headway in that objective.
“When Vladimir Putin took to the podium today, all you had to do, the most telling thing, was to look at his audience, which was all of the key players in his inner circle … and just how extraordinarily unenthusiastic every single person in that room looked,” Simon Miles, a Russia expert at Duke University, said Tuesday in a video briefing. “Absolutely no enthusiasm for this war effort, which they know is in the process of ruining their country and also their own fortunes.”
The U.S. president delivered a sharp rebuke of his Russian counterpart and took aim at Putin’s claim that the West was to blame and aggression in Ukraine was a necessity.
“This war was never a necessity. It’s a tragedy,” Biden said in a direct appeal to the Russian people. “President Putin chose this war. Every day the war continues is his choice.”
Biden said the U.S. and other allies would announce more sanctions against Moscow for “the war crimes and crimes against humanity continuing to be committed by the Russians.”
The U.S.-based Arms Control Association warned that the death of New START could trigger a global nuclear-arms race.
“W/out a new agreement to replace New START, each side could double the number of their deployed strategic nuclear warheads within 2-3 years,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the association, said on Twitter. “It would be a senseless arms race to nowhere but increasing nuclear danger. It would be a race that neither side can hope to win.”