In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden sharply condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine, calling him a “Russian dictator.” Putin tried to “shake the foundations of the free world,” but “greatly miscalculated,” Biden said, speaking on the evening of March 1 in the US Congress. According to Biden, Putin started the war “deliberately and without reason”, he decided to reject efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means. Even if he manages to achieve success in the course of the war, in the long run he will “pay a big price” for it, the US president said.
As Biden noted, Putin “thought the world would turn away when he attacked Ukraine,” but instead ran into “a wall of power he could not have imagined” in that country. “If the dictators are not stopped, they will create even more chaos,” Biden said. It is for this reason that NATO was created. According to him, Putin “thought that he could cause a split in the West, and NATO would not react to this.” “Putin was wrong,” Biden said. In the rivalry between democracies and autocracies, the former rise to the challenge, and “the world makes an unequivocal choice in favor of peace and security.”
Biden praised the courage of Ukrainians resisting Russian aggression
Biden praised the “fearlessness, courage and determination” of the Ukrainians and their President Zelensky, who are resisting Russian aggression, who are “delighting the world.” In his opinion, Putin will never be able to achieve the favor of the Ukrainian people. “Putin can surround Kyiv with tanks, but he will never win the hearts and souls of Ukrainians,” he said. According to Biden, the Russian dictator will never succeed in destroying Ukrainians’ love for freedom.
As a result of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia, Putin was “isolated from the world like never before,” and the Russian economy has already felt their effect, Biden said. He announced the closure of US airspace to Russian aircraft, following the EU, the UK and Canada, which, he said, would further isolate the Russian Federation. He also announced his intention to close Russia’s access to technology, which would weaken the Russian military in the long run. “When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war against Ukraine will leave behind a weakened Russia and strengthen the rest of the world,” the US president said. According to him, freedom always wins over tyranny.
See also:
