As Ukraine war rages, Biden says Putin ‘cannot remain in power’
As Russia continued to batter Ukraine, President Biden upped his verbal attack on Vladimir Putin.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said Saturday during a speech in Poland.
The White House quickly tried to clarify that Biden was not calling for Russians to dump their despot.
A White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the president was “not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change.” Biden’s message, the official said, was “Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”
Moscow dismissed Biden’s comments.
“This is not to be decided by Mr. Biden,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “It should only be a choice of the people of the Russian Federation.”
A Putin power play in 2020 led to a constitutional change that would allow him to seek two more terms, potentially keeping him in command through 2036.
Biden’s speech capped a four-day trip to Europe concluding in Poland, a country that has seen a huge influx of refugees since Putin unleashed his forces on his neighboring nation without provocation.
As Biden spoke in Poland, Russia ramped up its attack on the Ukrainian city of Lviv, just 45 miles from the Russian border. Explosions rocked that city, which has served as a hub for hundreds of thousands of people trying to escape the assault on other areas of Ukraine.
Lviv had largely been spared as the Russians military concentrated on the southeast city of Mariupol and the capital of Kyiv. That changed on Saturday, with multiple explosions in or near Ukraine’s sixth-largest city, which has a population of more than 700,000.
“None of the Ukrainian cities are safe now,” said Olana Ukrainets, 34, who was speaking from a bomb shelter.
She fled to Lviv from the city of Kharkiv, which has sustained severe shelling for much of the war, which began on Feb. 24.
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said the second rocket attack significantly damaged an “infrastructure object” but did not specify what it was.
Authorities did not release figures on the number of casualties, which took place in an area that is partly industrial.
“We saw many ambulances coming,” said Inga Kapitula, a 24-year-old IT worker who said she was 100 or 200 yards away from the first attack and felt the blast wave. “It was really close.”
Ukraine has dashed Putin’s hope of a quick strike, with military members and civilians alike inflicting damage upon their invaders. But any hope for a letup in the attack is unfounded, Britain’s defense ministry said Saturday.
“Russia will continue to use its heavy firepower on urban areas as it looks to limit its own already considerable losses, at the cost of further civilian casualties,” the U.K. ministry said.
Among the cities taking a pounding is Chernihiv, a city of about 285,000 in northern Ukraine.
Residents there are forced to wait in long lines for drinking water, which is limited 2½ gallons per person. And water isn’t the only thing in short supply.
“Food is running out, and shelling and bombing doesn’t stop,” said Ihar Kazmerchak, a 38-year-old who spoke to the Associated Press by cellphone. He described a desperate city where medicine is scarce and the power is off.
“In basements at night, everyone is talking about one thing: Chernihiv becoming (the) next Mariupol,” he said.
Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko estimates Chernihiv’s death toll to be in the hundreds, and about half the city’s population has fled.
Civilian suffering throughout Ukraine has been a hallmark of Putin’s heinous attacks. An attack on a theater in Mariupol that was being used as a bomb shelter killed about 300 people. And the Associated Press has documented at least 34 attacks on civilian medical facilities.
Such atrocities have led Biden to brand Putin as a “war criminal” and, on Saturday, “a butcher.”
In his speech, attended by Polish President Andrzej Duda, Biden said Warsaw — which was destroyed by the Nazis in World War II and then rebuilt — “holds a sacred place in the history of not only of Europe but humankind’s unending search for freedom. For generations, Warsaw has stood where liberty has been challenged and liberty has prevailed.”
Biden, who invoked Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II in his remarks, also warned that the West must stand resolute against Russian aggression.
“In this battle we need to be clear-eyed. This battle will not be won in days, or months, either,” Biden said.
The president also made an appeal to the residents of Russia.
“You the Russian people are not our enemy,” Biden said. “I refuse to believe that you welcome the killing of innocent children and grandparents or that you accept hospitals, schools, maternity wards — for God’s sake — being pummeled with Russian missiles and bombs.”
After speaking at the Royal Castle, Biden then went to a national stadium to talk to refugees. Nearly 4 million people who have fled Ukraine during the war, with about half of them going to Poland.
“What I am always surprised by is the depth and strength of the human spirit,” Biden said after meeting with the displaced. “Each one of those children said something to the effect of, ‘Say a prayer for my dad or grandfather or my brother who is out there fighting.”
With News Wire Services
