Joe Biden says Putin’s ‘cowardly lust for land and power will fail’

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine, US President Joe Biden criticized his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s “cowardly greed for land and power”.

Biden specifically condemned Putin in remarks from Warsaw, Poland, three days before the anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

“When President Putin ordered his tanks to roll in Ukraine, he thought we were going to overturn. He was wrong,” Biden told thousands on Tuesday in front of the Polish presidential palace.

“The Ukrainian people are too brave. America, Europe, a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we were too united. Democracy was too strong.’

Biden said Putin “no longer doubts the strength of our coalition” but rather “doubts our continued support for Ukraine” and the unification of NATO. The US President assured that “NATO will not be divided and we will not tire”.

“President Putin’s cowardly greed for land and power will fail. And the love of the Ukrainian people for their country will prevail,” Biden said.

“Democracies around the world will guard freedom today, tomorrow and forever. Because that’s what it’s about – that’s what this is about: freedom.’

Biden delivered his remarks a day after a surprise visit to Kiev, during which he stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and announced an additional $460 million in military aid.

The US notified the Kremlin of Biden’s surprise visit “a few hours before he left for conflict resolution purposes,” according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

On Tuesday, Biden said the world “prepared for the fall of Kiev” a year ago. But: “I can report that Kiev is strong,” he said.

Biden concluded that the world is at a “tipping point” and decisions made in the next five years will shape the decades to come.

“While we must make decisions now, the principles and stakes are eternal,” Biden said. “The choice between chaos and stability, between construction and destruction, between hope and fear, between democracy that uplifts the human spirit – and the brutal hand of the dictator that crushes it.”

Biden tore up Putin, but did not call for his removal.

Hours earlier, Putin had informed the Russian parliament that the country would no longer participate in the New START nuclear weapons treaty with the United States. It was the last major arms control agreement between the two superpowers. Russia will suspend the treaty but not cancel it.

Putin did not name Biden in his announcement.

According to Sullivan, Biden’s speech was not intended as a response to Putin, but coincided with the one-year war anniversary on Friday.

“We didn’t set the speech up as some kind of head-to-head race, it’s not a rhetorical contest with anyone else,” Sullivan said. “This is an affirmative statement of values, a vision of what the world we are both trying to build and defend should be like.”

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