Vladimir Putin, as the president of the Russian Federation, made a unilateral decision to invade Ukraine. He never even spoke to the Russian people about any decision he had already made to invade Ukraine. He never told his military leades before they engaged in war games. His soldiers never knew not one day they were going to invade and destroy Ukraine.
The world has become populated in ways that does not allow for such destruction. Our countries must get along and see to the well being of every human being. This episode with Vladimir Putin has disgraced the entire world to realize this was possible or even thought about. The Ukrainian people have a right to exist. For the world not to have a clear understanding of that right for every person to live and breath and strive for a better day is a travesty to civilization. I realize there is poverty on this planet and hardship, but, to kill another human being out of hate is simply not allowed.
I don't know this Vladimir Putin. I thought I knew the one that was President of the Russian Federation and a member of the G8. I thought I knew him, but, this man? I don't him. He lost respect when he needlessly invaded Ukraine on a tirade because a former Ukrainian president who was a sympathizer for the development of a dictatorship was removed from power. It was time for Ukriane to stand on it's own and come to a reality of it's own power, no different than any of the other Post Soviet states. The world understood that. What the vast many of us did not understand is the hatred Putin held for the Ukrainian people.
The world stood down when Russian took Crimea away from Ukraine and stood back while eastern Ukraine was engaged in a Russian backed civil war. That posture of the global community only gave permission for the latest expression of hatred by the Russian president. I thought losing the seat at the G8 would mean something and it meant nothing. The global community means nothing to the Russian president and he made that very clear when he not only lied about the reason for war, but, even after the World Court decided it was genocide, Vladimir Putin and his generals continued to kill innocent civilians.
President Biden is correct in calling attention to the inappropriate expression of blatant power exhibited by Vladimir Putin and his military. The new understanding of the suffering a Russian president has brought to a nation of more than 44 million people will not be ignored. There will be no looking the other way.
I am proud of my President. He is a good and decent man that longs for a world whereby every human being is valued and finds peace with the right to live and strive for a better tomorrow.
Vladimir Putin committed genocide against the Ukrainian people. There isn't anything else to understand. It could be any other nation in the future.
By Ashley Parker and Tyler Pager
Warsaw - President Biden forcefully denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (click here) on Saturday, casting Moscow’s aggression as “the test of all time” for democracy before ending his sunset speech here by saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.”
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said, in an unscripted remark that came at the end of his roughly 30-minute address.
The White House raced to clarify his comment, issuing a statement saying that Biden had not actually meant what he’d said.
“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” a White House official said in a statement. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”
Even aside from that remark, Biden’s speech in Warsaw — the capstone of a three-day trip to Europe — marked the most defiant and aggressive speech about Russia by an American president since Ronald Reagan, and came as the war between Russia and Ukraine entered its second month....
