Joseph Biden claimed Vladimir Putin expected his adversaries to “roll over” when he invaded Ukraine, but was faced with “iron will” by its allies, as the Russian president suspended a crucial nuclear pact with the US after blaming the West of launching the war.
The US president delivered a historic speech from the lawns of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his state of the nation address.
Mr. Biden was speaking in Poland’s capital just a day after his highly clandestine and historic visit to Kyiv, Ukraine.
“I can report that Kyiv stands strong, proud, tall, and, most importantly, free,” Mr Biden remarked on Tuesday evening.
Ukrainian war: Biden appears dancing and boasts, “NATO is stronger than ever.”
Mr Putin had earlier accused the West for instigating the crisis in Ukraine and claimed his country responded with force “in order to end it”.
He also stated that Ukraine was in contact with the West about armament supply prior to Russia’s invasion of its neighbour on February 24, last year.
“I would want to emphasise that while Russia attempted to find a peaceful solution, they were playing with people’s lives and playing a filthy game,” Mr Putin added.
‘Democracy was too strong,’ adds Biden.
As the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches, both leaders delivered addresses that presented sharply opposing perspectives on the war.
Mr. Biden used his speech to accuse Mr. Putin of underestimating Ukraine and NATO’s strength before launching the full-scale invasion.
“When Russia invaded, it wasn’t only Ukraine that was tested; the entire world faced a test for the ages… all democracies were challenged,” the US president remarked.
“The questions we faced were both basic and profound. Would we respond or turn the other cheek?
“Are we going to be strong or weak?”
“One year later, we know the answer,” Mr. Biden concluded.
“If we did reply, we would be strong and united, and the world would not turn a blind eye.”
“President Putin ordered his tanks to roll into Ukraine, thinking we’d roll over,” Biden remarked. He was mistaken.
“The Ukrainian people were too brave. America, Europe, a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we were too unified.
“Democracy was too powerful. Putin withdrew with burnt-out tanks and Russia’s soldiers in disarray, rather than the simple triumph he anticipated and predicted.
“He expected the Finlandization of NATO, but instead received the NATOization of Finland and Sweden.”
The phrase Finlandization refers to a country’s decision not to challenge a more powerful neighbour in international policy while retaining national autonomy.
‘Autocrats have weakened.’
“He expected NATO to splinter and divide, but NATO was more united and more unified than ever before,” Mr Biden concluded.
“He thought autocrats were tough and democracies’ leaders were soft, until he faced the iron resolve of America and nations everywhere who refused to accept a world ruled by fear and force.”
“President Putin is confronted with something today that he did not think was achievable a year ago,” Mr. Biden remarked.
“The world’s democracies have gotten stronger, not weaker, but the world’s autocracies have grown weaker, not stronger.”
Mr Biden also said Russia had committed “abhorrent” crimes in Ukraine by targeting civilians with “death and destruction” and had used rape as a “weapon of war”.
He also accused Russian soldiers of kidnapping Ukrainian children and bombing orphanages and maternity centres.
Mr. Biden reiterated that the US will never abandon Ukraine.
Russia claims that the West “let the genie out of the bottle.”
In his presentation hours before Mr Biden’s, Mr Putin claimed Russia opted to “defend its people and history” by undertaking a “special military operation step-by-step” – as he warned that Moscow will “continue to resolve the objectives that are before us”.
The Russian president has constantly referred to the invasion as a “special military operation” since it began last year.
“I’d want to reiterate, they initiated the war, and we used force to put an end to it,” he stated.
Mr Putin also declared that Russia would withdraw from a fundamental nuclear pact with the US that limits the two countries’ strategic nuclear arsenals.
The number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy is limited under the New START pact.
Mr Putin stated that Russia was not completely withdrawing from the deal and that Moscow must be prepared to resume nuclear weapons tests if the US does.
The Russian president lashed out at the West, saying they “let the genie out of the bottle” in the ten years leading up to the war by beginning others.
He argued that Western countries were portraying Russia as an adversary of the state in order to shift attention away from their own corruption and socioeconomic issues.
In terms of weapons, Mr Putin stated that the West was “in negotiations” about the “delivery of heavy military equipment, planes, and anti-aircraft missile systems” before the operation began.
After three major battlefield reverses since the war began, Russia still occupies around one-fifth of Ukraine.
In his wide-ranging speech, the Russian president also claimed millions of people in the West are being “driven to a real spiritual catastrophe”, as he slammed the “Anglican Church’s proposal to study the idea of a gender-neutral God”.
On his visit to the Ukrainian capital on Monday, Mr Biden stated that America would supply Kyiv with a new $500 million (£413 million) military aid package as he was spotted walking through the city with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr ZelenAWNy.
Mr Biden said Mr Putin had assumed Ukraine was “weak and the West was split” and “thought he could outlast us” but adding – “he was dead wrong”.
Mr ZelenAWNy claimed he addressed long-range weaponry with Mr Biden and described negotiations as “quite constructive”.