The White House scrambled to row back Joe Biden’s declaration that Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power”, insisting he was not calling for a regime change.
In an impassioned speech in Warsaw, the US president appealed to Russian people directly, with comparisons between the invasion of Ukraine and the horrors of the Second World War.
“For God’s sake this man cannot remain in power,” the US president said at the close of his speech of the Russian president he earlier described as a “butcher”.
Mr Biden pleaded “if you’re able to listen: you, the Russian people, are not our enemy”, as multiple rockets struck the city of Lviv near the Polish border in the west of Ukraine.
But a White House official tried to argue that the US president’s point was that the Russian leader “cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region”.
“He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change,” the official added, before reports in the US suggested the remarks in question had not been scripted.
Mr Biden warned “we need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead” as he conceded the battle will not be “won in days, or months either”.
He told European nations they must end “dependence on Russian fossil fuels”, but said sanctions had been sapping Russia’s strength and have reduced the rouble “to rubble”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the travel bans and asset freezes are “not designed to be permanent”.
The Secretary of State said the sanctions could “go away” in the event of an “in effect, irreversible” withdrawal of Russian troops.
Moscow has given an indication it could scale back its offensive to focus on what it claimed was the “main goal, liberation of Donbas”, the region bordering Russia in the east of Ukraine.
The brave Ukrainian resistance is a front in a larger fight: for the essential democratic principles that unite all free people.
These principles are essential for a free society, but have always been embattled.
Every generation has had to defeat democracy’s mortal foes.— President Biden (@POTUS) March 26, 2022
But Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned he would not give up territory in peace talks as he noted that his troops have delivered “powerful blows” to invading forces.
