Biden issued a rallying cry in an address to mark the first anniversary of the full-scale invasion, standing before the arches below Warsaw's royal castle to address a crowd of 30,000, mostly Poles and Ukrainians, yesterday evening.
He was speaking after Putin had delivered a speech of his own in which he blamed the west for the war and announced the withdrawal of Russian participation in the 2010 New Start treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the US and Russia.
Biden did not respond to the announcement or even mention Putin's speech in his own address. The White House was adamant it was the Russian leader who had changed the date of his speech to coincide with Biden's east Europe trip. However, the US president did ridicule Putin for the failure of his ambitions last February to conquer Ukraine in a few days.
"Instead of an easy victory he predicted, Putin left burnt-out tanks and Russian forces in disarray," Biden told the audience in the Polish capital.
The US president sought to paint a broader picture of the essential battle between democracies and authoritarian regimes, a central theme of his foreign policy. It was a battle on the way to being won in Ukraine, he said, thanks to Ukrainian courage and western solidarity, but Biden made clear the struggle was far from over.
This story is from the February 22, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the February 22, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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