[Yahoo] In a sweeping and forceful speech concluding a four-day trip to Europe, President Joe Biden cast the war in Ukraine on Saturday as part of an ongoing battle for freedom and ended with a blunt call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be stopped."For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden said during a visit to Warsaw, Poland, in his strongest comments to date about his desire to see Putin gone.
Shortly after the speech, a White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity said Biden was not calling for Putin to be removed from office.
"The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region," the official said. "He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change."
Biden’s remarks came just a few hours after he bluntly described the Russian leader as "a butcher" while meeting with Ukrainian refugees who had fled to Poland to escape the war in their homeland.
Biden appealed to ordinary Russians, first telling them — "if you’re able to listen" — that "you...are not our enemy."
Biden spoke in the packed courtyard of the Royal Castle in Warsaw where American and Polish flags fluttered in the background and the building was bathed in white, red, blue and yellow lights, the colors of Poland and Ukraine.
He said what they experienced at the hands of invaders in World War II is exactly what is happening to Ukrainians by the Russian military.
"These are not the actions of a great nation," Biden said of the bombings of hospitals, schools and maternity wards. "This war is not worthy of you, the Russian people."
Or what? This isn't Iraq where you could bully Saddam out of power. Russia has nukes and WILL use them if they feel they have no more choices or be a rump and subservient power to the West. God we have fucking morons in DC.