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US President Joe Biden said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “not a decent man” but “a dictator” who has concerned himself for decades with airstrikes with American weapons.
Biden made the remarks during the 80th anniversary of the D-D invasion in France.
Biden said: “We’re not authorizing strikes 200 miles into Russia, and we’re not authorizing strikes on Moscow, on the Kremlin.
“They’re authorized to be used in proximity to the border when they’re being used on the other side of the border to attack specific targets in Ukraine."
Speaking about Putin, Biden said, "Russian leader has “concerned me for 40 years. He’s not a decent man. He’s a dictator, and he’s struggling to make sure he holds his country together while still keeping this assault going.
“We’re not talking about giving them weapons to strike Moscow, to strike the Kremlin, to strike against — just across the border, where they’re receiving significant fire from conventional weapons used by the Russians to go into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians.”
Biden’s comments are his latest sharp criticism of Putin amid Russian’s war in Ukraine.
Biden in remarks at Normandy on Thursday directly connected the fighting in World War II to the importance of maintaining alliances today.
“The struggle between a dictatorship and freedom is unending,” he said. “To surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators is simply unthinkable. Were we to do that, it means we would be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”
