UK distances itself from Biden saying Putin ‘cannot remain in power’
A UK cabinet minister distanced the government from Joe Biden’s call that Russia’s Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” amid criticism that the comment could bolster the Kremlin.
Though no government figure has been overtly critical of the comments, unlike the French president, Emmanual Macron, Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, said it was “for the Russian people to decide how they are governed” after the unscripted remark from Biden at a speech in Poland on Saturday, which the White House later said was not a call for regime change.
Macron distances himself from Biden’s Putin comments
French President Emmanuel Macron said he “would not use those words” after US President Joe Biden called the Russian leader a “butcher” over the war in Ukraine.
Biden’s barbed remark about Putin: A slip or a veiled threat?
… Several of the administration’s most ardent supporters in the foreign policy world quickly chided the president for seeming to seek Mr. Putin’s removal. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, called it a “bad lapse in discipline that runs risk of extending the scope and duration of the war.”
Biden is not all there.
