President Joe Biden on Saturday called for Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s removal, saying, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
Biden also used a speech in Poland’s capital to make a vociferous defense of liberal democracy and the NATO military alliance, while also saying Europe must steel itself for a long fight against Russian aggression.
In what was billed by the White House as a major address, Biden spoke in front of the Royal Castle, one of Warsaw’s notable landmarks that was badly damaged during War II.
He borrowed the words of Polish-born Pope John Paul II and cited anti-communist Polish dissident and former president, Lech Walesa, as he warned that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to bring “decades of war.”
“In this battle we need to be clear-eyed. This battle will not be won in days, or months, either,” Biden said.
The crowd of about 1,000 included some of the Ukrainian refugees who have fled for Poland and elsewhere in the midst of the brutal invasion.
“We must commit now, to be this fight for the long haul,” Biden said. President Joe Biden on Saturday marveled at the spirit and resolve of Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of Russia’s deadly invasion as he embraced mothers and children and promised enduring support from Western powers.
Biden, while in Poland’s capital, listened intently as children described the perilous flight from neighboring Ukraine with their parents. Smiling broadly, he lifted up a young girl in a pink coat and told her she reminded him of his granddaughters.
The president held hands with parents and gave them hugs during the stop at a soccer stadium where refugees go to obtain a Polish identification number that gives them access to social services such as health care and schools.
Some of the women and children told Biden that they fled without their husbands and fathers, men of fighting age who were required to remain behind to aid the resistance against the forces that Russian President Vladimir Putin — “a butcher,” in Biden’s words — sent into Ukraine more than a month ago.
“What I am always surprised by is the depth and strength of the human spirit,” Biden told reporters after his conversations with the refugees at the stadium, which more recently had served as a field hospital for COVID-19 patients. “Each one of those children said something to the effect of, ‘Say a prayer for my dad or grandfather or my brother who is out there fighting.”