The United States does not have a policy of regime change in Russia,American officials said, a day after President Joe Biden said that hisRussian counterpart Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in powerlink”.
“As you know, and as you’ve heard us say repeatedly, we do not have astrategy of regime change in Russia or anywhere else,” Secretary of StateAnthony Blinken said on Sunday during a visit to Israel. “In this case, asin any case, it’s up to the people of the country in question. It’s up tothe Russian people,” Blinken added.
Blinken’s comments came after Biden gave his most forceful speech againstPutin since the Russian leader ordered the invasion of UkrainelinkonFebruary 24.
In an address delivered at Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Saturday evening, Bidenevoked Poland’s four decades behind the Iron Curtain in an effort to builda case that the world’s democracies must urgently confront an autocraticRussia as a threat to global security and freedom.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said. Earlier inthe day, the president also described Putin as a “butcher,” in whatappeared to be a sharp escalation of US rhetoric over Moscow’s militaryoffensive, which has now killed at least 1,000 civilians, according toconservative estimates by the United Nations, and caused more than 3.8million people to flee Ukraine.
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Soon after the speech, a White House official clarified that Biden’scomments were meant to prepare the world’s democracies for extendedconflict over Ukraine, and were not backing regime change in Russia.
The US NATO envoy Julianne Smith reiterated the same message on Sunday.
“The US does not have a policy of regime change in Russia. Full stop,”Smith told CNN’s State of the Union program. Smith said Biden’s remarkssought to underscore that the international community cannot empower Putinto wage war in Ukraine or pursue more acts of aggression following Russia’sinvasion of the country.A ‘horrendous gaffe’
Senator James Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, called Biden’s remarks a “horrendous gaffe” and said he wishedthe president would have stayed on script.
“Most people who don’t deal in the lane of foreign relations don’t realisethose nine words that he uttered would cause the kind of eruption that theydid,” he told CNN. “It’s going to cause a huge problem.”
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Biden’s fiery words were also not welcomed by some European leaders such asPresident Emmanuel Macron, who called for restraint in both words andactions.
“We want to stop the war that Russia has launched in Ukraine withoutescalation – that’s the objective,” Macron told France 3 TV on Sunday,noting the objective was to obtain a ceasefire and the withdrawal of troopsthrough diplomatic means. “If this is what we want to do, we should notescalate things – neither with words nor actions,” he said.
While strongly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Frenchpresident has kept an open channel of communication with the Kremlin in anattempt to mediate for a diplomatic solutionlink.On Friday, Macron said he was seeking to hold more talks with Putin in thecoming days regarding the situation in Ukraine as well as an initiative tohelp people leave the besieged city of Mariupol.
Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in the southern citylinkwithconditions deteriorating by the day as several attempts to createhumanitarian corridors have failed.
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Source: Al Jazeera and news agencieslink
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