The US president, when questioned on Sunday after going to church after returning to the White House, denied that he was seeking “regime change” as a new policy. On Monday, at a White House event with the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young, to present the 2023 budget proposals, Biden said of his comments in Poland: “I am not doing anything back.” He was adamant that he did not call for a change of regime in Russia, but only expressed his personal “moral outrage” at the “barbarity” of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, having visited some of the millions of refugees who fled the war last month. “I was expressing the moral outrage I felt; I had just come from these families. “But I want to be clear that I am not articulating a policy change then, nor now,” he said. “I do not apologize for that,” he added, commenting Saturday. Biden said Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was “completely unacceptable” and said the comment did not undermine US and European allies’ diplomatic efforts to seek peace and negotiate an end to Ukraine’s bombings. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators continue talks in Turkey on Tuesday, their first meeting in more than two weeks. On Sunday, the day Biden called Putin a butcher and said he could not stay in power, French President Emmanuel Macron warned against using inflammatory language in an already volatile situation. Britain has also distanced itself from US comments. The Kremlin said the “personal insults” had further undermined US-Russian relations. Pressed on Monday for his comments, Biden was provocative and said he was not worried that his comments would be interpreted as a call for regime change or used by Russian propagandists to justify the escalation of Moscow’s aggression. “No one thinks I was talking about Putin’s fall; no one believes that,” he said. “I was expressing my anger at this man’s behavior.” He reiterated that Putin “should not remain in power”, but acknowledged that “bad people” often persist in their positions despite their behavior. Biden did not say directly whether he would be willing to meet with Putin and depend on “what he wants to say.” And he said of the Russian president: “He continues on this path that he is following, he is going to become a global outcast and kindness knows what is happening in his home.”
