Joe Biden says Vladimir Putin ‘miscalculated’ Russia’s ability to occupy Ukraine
- US president said he believes ‘rational actor’ Vladimir Putin misjudged his war against Ukraine
- On Monday, Russia unleashed one of its largest attacks on Ukraine since the beginning of the war
US President Joe Biden said he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a normally rational actor who badly misjudged his prospects of occupying Ukraine.
The president spoke out in a rare televised interview as his administration looks for what he has described as an “off-ramp” for Putin to de-escalate his invasion of Ukraine before he resorts to weapons of mass destruction.
“I think he is a rational actor who has miscalculated significantly,” Biden told CNN after Moscow’s shelling of civilian targets across its neighbour marked an escalation in the seven-month conflict.
Biden characterised the Russian leader’s decision to invade as irrational.
“He talked about the whole idea of – he was needed to be the leader of Russia that united all of Russian speakers. I mean, it’s just I just think it’s irrational,” Biden said in the interview.
He added that Putin “thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated”.
Musk denies report he spoke with Putin before peace tweets
Biden also said the US had gamed out responses if Putin uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
“The Pentagon didn’t have to be asked,” Biden said, in response to a question about whether he’d directed the Defence Department to come up with contingencies.
The president declined to elaborate on the discussions, saying it would be irresponsible “to talk about what we would or wouldn’t do”.
Biden said on Tuesday that his comments were directed toward Putin himself and that he ultimately does not think the Russian leader would go through with deploying a nuclear weapon.
“I don’t think he will. But I think that it’s irresponsible for him to talk about it,” he said.
.jpg?itok=J9T8V6cj)
03:20
Kyiv cleans up in aftermath of Russian missile strikes
“Once you use a nuclear weapon, the mistakes that can be made, the miscalculations, who knows what would happen?”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow would only employ nuclear weapons if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state TV, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlin’s intentions.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine envisions “exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state,” Lavrov said.
After Russian strikes, Biden promises Ukraine advanced air defence systems
Putin’s state of mind has been the subject of much debate after the Russian president suffered a series of recent military setbacks in the invasion, which he launched in February.
Kyiv’s forces have in recent weeks been pushing back against Russian soldiers across the front lines in the south and in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday his troops had recaptured nearly 2,500 sq km (965 square miles) in the counteroffensive that began late last month.
But the Ukrainian defence ministry said on Monday that Russia had retaliated with a massive bombardment of its neighbour, hitting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv for the first time in months, as well as other cities across the country.
Pro-Kremlin pundits lauded the attacks as an appropriate response to Kyiv’s successful counteroffensives. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity to win a war.
The head of Britain’s cyber-intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, said Tuesday in a rare public speech that Russia is running out of military supplies and struggling to fill its ranks.
Joe Biden should look to Kissinger, not JFK, for help to end Ukraine war
“Russia’s forces are exhausted,” Fleming said. “The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilisation of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation.”
Zelensky told the G7 “millions of people would be grateful” for help fending off attacks from the sky, and he warned Russia “still has room for further escalation”.
Washington pledged after Monday’s bloody salvoes that it would up shipments of air defences to Ukraine, while Germany promised delivery “in the coming days” of the first Iris-T missile shield reportedly capable of protecting a city.
Russia is bracing itself for a longer war against its neighbouring country because of planned US arms deliveries to Ukraine, according to the Kremlin.
Meanwhile, the United States was leading an all-out offensive to rally as many countries as possible to adopt a resolution at the UN condemning Moscow’s annexation of Ukrainian regions.
“We believe the time has long passed for neutrality. There is no such thing as neutrality in a situation like this,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
UN countries are debating a resolution introduced to the General Assembly by Ukraine, which the West hopes will demonstrate the isolation of Putin’s Russia on the international stage, with a vote likely on Wednesday or Thursday.
Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Bloomberg
