Joe Biden condemned Vladimir Putin as a “butcher” who could no longer stay in power in a historic speech in Poland as Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine’s most pro-western city, just 40 miles from the Polish border.
With explosions erupting across neighbouring Lviv, in a clear act of defiance from the Kremlin, Biden told an audience in Warsaw that the west must steel itself “for a long fight ahead”.
In what seemed to be a dramatic shift in US policy to back regime change in Moscow, Biden also appeared to urge those around the Russian president to oust him from the Kremlin. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said in his most belligerent speech since the war began a month ago.
US officials later said that Biden had been talking about the need for Putin to lose power over Ukrainian territory and in the wider region.
The American leader said Putin was “bent on violence”. Addressing the Russian president directly, Biden said: “Don’t even think about moving on to one single inch of Nato territory.” » | Daniel Boffey in Lviv, Shaun Walker in Kyiv and Philip Oltermann in Berlin | Saturday, March 26, 2022
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