Biden’s remarks in Poland on Saturday also described Putin as a “butcher” and appeared to be a sharp escalation of the US approach to Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. read more Top US diplomats on Sunday downgraded his statement, and Biden, when asked by a reporter as he left a church in Washington whether he was calling for regime change in Russia, replied unequivocally: “No.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Julian Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, had earlier tried to incorporate Biden’s statements, saying they had followed a day of talks with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw. The invasion of Russia a month ago has driven a quarter of Ukraine’s 44 million people from their homes. “At the moment, I think it was a human reaction to principles in the stories he heard that day,” Smith told CNN’s State of the Union before adding: “The United States has no policy of regime change in Russia. . Perfect.” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told a news conference in Jerusalem that Biden had argued that Putin could not be authorized to wage war. However, Blinken said that any decision on Russia’s future leadership would “depend on the Russian people.” Republicans have made it clear that Biden’s remarks were tantamount to an unfortunate blunder. Senator James Rees, the top Republican on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called Biden’s remarks a “horrible blunder” and said he wished the president had stayed in the script. “Most people who are not involved in foreign relations do not realize that these nine words he uttered would cause the kind of explosion they caused,” he told CNN. US President Joe Biden speaks during an event at the Royal Castle amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Warsaw, Poland, on March 26, 2022. REUTERS / Aleksandra Szmigiel / File Photo “In the name of God, this man can not stay in power,” he said, referring to Biden’s statement in Warsaw. Senator Rob Portman, who is also on the committee, lamented the public mistake in wartime. “He’s playing into the hands of Russian propagandists and he’s playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin. So he was wrong,” Portman told NBC’s Meet the Press. UKRAINIAN RESISTANCE The United States has sought to strike a balance during the conflict in Ukraine to avoid a direct military confrontation with Russia by speeding up arms deliveries to Kyiv to help with the fighting, but has ruled out sending troops into the country or imposing sanctions. no-fly zone. This support strengthened the Ukrainian resistance harder than expected, and Russia failed to capture any major Ukrainian cities after more than four weeks of fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the West to provide Ukraine with tanks, planes and missiles to repel Russian forces. read more The conflict has killed thousands of people, sent nearly 3.8 million abroad and displaced more than half of Ukraine’s children from their homes, according to the United Nations. Moscow says targets for what Putin calls a “special military operation” include demilitarizing and “rewarding” its neighbor. Ukraine and its Western allies call it a pretext for an unprovoked invasion. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Phil Stewart, Brendan O’Brien, Trevor Hunnicutt, Costas Pitas and Michael Martina. additional report by Humeyra Pamuk on JERUSALEM, edited by Diane Craft, Paul Simao and Cynthia Osterman Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
