KYIV: U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday night in Warsaw robustly defended the Western alliance’s year-long effort to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion and vowed it would not stop.
“One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden told the over ten thousand Poles gathered outdoors at Poland’s Royal Castle complex. “Well, I’ve just come from a visit to Kyiv, and I can report Kyiv stands strong. It stands tall. And most important, it stands free.”
Biden promised that support for Ukraine will not waver, and NATO will not be divided. “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never,” he declared, saying the alliance is “more resolved than ever” in supplying munitions and humanitarian aid to non-NATO member Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russia.
Fresh off his dramatic surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv on Monday, Biden assailed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invasion he launched a year ago this Friday and said the Russian leader could just as easily end the warfare.
“The West is not plotting to attack Russia as Putin said today,” Biden declared.
“The democracies of the world have grown stronger” in their pushback against Russian aggression, Biden said, adding “The autocracies of the world have grown weaker.”
Biden used part of his speech in front of an applauding crowd to reiterate what Vice President Kamala Harris announced just days earlier at the Munich Security Conference, that the U.S. has determined Moscow as having committed “crimes against humanity” and “atrocities” against the Ukrainian people.
“They’ve committed depravity, crimes against humanity without shame or compunction,” Biden said.
Specifically, he accused Russia of “targeting civilians with death,” using rape as “a weapon of war,” stealing Ukrainian children by forcibly removing them from their homeland and launching airstrikes against train stations, maternity wards, hospitals, schools and orphanages.
“No one, no one can turn away their eyes from the atrocities Russia is committing against the Ukrainian people. It’s abhorrent,” Biden said.
Russia has denied targeting civilians.
(VOA)
Comment