This is a controversy that refuses to die off. For what seemed like the umpteenth time, US President Joe Biden reiterated that his weekend comment in Europe that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” was a moral outrage for his invasion of Ukraine, and that does not reflect any change in American policy with respect to regime change.
Biden has been facing a difficult time for those statements. Last week, he had hit out against Russia's Vladimir Putin on Saturday, summoning a call for liberal democracy and a durable resolve among Western nations in the face of a brutal autocrat. Biden said of Putin: “For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
As such, Biden refused to apologise for his comments. “I am not walking anything back. The fact of the matter is, I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing ..., which is just brutality, half the children of Ukraine. I just come from being with those families,” Biden told reporters at the White House .
“But I want to make it clear, I wasn't then nor am I now articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel and I make no apologies for it,” he said, when asked about his remarks last week in Europe where he had gone to shore up his allies and show solidarity with the people of Ukraine.
