U.S. President Joe Biden, his aides and Western allies are scrambling to explain his remark that Russian leader Vladimir Putin could not remain in power because they do not want to escalate conflict between Washington and Moscow, officials said.
The nine-word line, at the end of a 27-minute speech in Warsaw on Saturday, has distracted from what some observers regard as the best piece of rhetoric of Biden's presidency. It made foreign allies uneasy at the end of an otherwise successful trip aimed at uniting allies against Russia, and has raised fresh questions about the United States' long-term strategy for its former Cold War foe.
But Saturday's remark wasn't one of those situations - he was speaking to an audience from a teleprompter. In the minutes before he called for Putin's departure from power, the crowd of roughly 1,000 people was clearly feeding off Biden's remarks, clapping, waiving flags and even starting a chant. Nonetheless, the remark echoes long-standing accusations from Russia and other nations that the United States seeks an imperialistic role in world conflicts, and escalates tensions as the West tries to manage an increasingly unpredictable Putin.
On Monday, Biden explained to reporters at the White House that his remark reflected his own "moral outrage" about Putin's actions, rather than any policy change. Still he added, if the Russian leader "continues on the course that he's on, he's going to become a pariah worldwide and who knows what he becomes at home in terms of support.
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