A year ago, the questions posed by the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine were “simple but profound”, said the President of the United States, Joe Biden, in a speech reflecting on a year of Russian war in Ukraine in Warsaw.
It was questions like whether countries would support Ukraine, whether NATO would stick together. A year later, Biden continued, “we know the answers to these questions: we are united and we will not be indifferent”.
Biden went back to the pre-war days, and the early days of the Russian invasion, when it was thought that Russian tanks would reach Kiev and take the Ukrainian capital.
But Biden was in Kiev the day before (he made a historic, unannounced visit from Poland). “And I can report that not only did Kiev not fall, Kiev stands proud, tall and free.”
A year ago, Putin “thought he was going to achieve the Finnishization of NATO – he achieved the nationalization of Finland and Sweden”, he declared, alluding to the policy of neutrality that Moscow imposed on Finland for decades and to Helsinki’s request for NATO membership and Stockholm, after changes in public opinion, which after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia began to see belonging to the Atlantic Alliance as a good option for their security.
And the Russian President, continued Biden, “was confronted with something that a year ago was unthinkable for him – democracies are stronger and autocracies are weaker”.
He thought he could use energy or lack of food as a weapon, but he couldn’t, Biden said.
A year later, “Putin no longer doubts the strength” of the response – which will only escalate with more sanctions to be announced next week. “But he still doubts the conviction, the long-term support, waiting for fatigue”, declared Biden, before guaranteeing: “This will not happen”.
Because there’s only one way to deal with autocrats, Biden continued. “They only get one word: no, no, and no. No, you are not going to take my country away from me, no, you are not going to take away my future.” More: “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never.”
Biden also spoke of the various atrocities of Russians in Ukraine, who committed crimes against civilians, “used rape as a weapon of war, stole children in an attempt to steal Ukraine’s future”.
But a year after “the tanks, the bombs, Ukraine is still independent and free”, and its President, Volodymyr Zelensky, “still leads a democratically elected government”, and in the United Nations “143 countries condemned” the Russian invasion, “and only four voted for Russia”.
Biden advisors had said, according to CNN television, that the US President’s speech would not be a response to the Russian President’s speech, also made this Tuesday. Biden took only a small part of his speech to refer to what Putin said: “We do not want to destroy Russia. We were not conspiring to attack Russia. This war was never a necessity, it was a tragedy. Every day the war goes on is your choice [de Putin]. Because if Russia stopped its invasion, the war was over. And if Ukraine stopped defending itself, that would be the end of Ukraine.”
Biden thanked Poland for welcoming so many refugees from Ukraine. And to “more than 50 countries that bring arms to brave Ukrainians on the front lines”.