By Janet Ekstract
İSTANBUL (GOLDENHORN AGENCY) – On Saturday in Warsaw, Poland, U.S. President Joe Biden gave an impassioned speech on the war in Ukraine, declaring Russian President Vladimir Putin a “dictator.” Biden commented: “A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase the people’s love for liberty. Brutality will never grind down their will to be free.” And the U.S. president added: “For God’s sake. This man cannot remain in power.” He urged the Ukrainian people to “never, ever give up hope.” Biden said that Ukraine’s fight for democracy was a “test of all time” and that Putin’s war on Ukraine is something Biden had warned about for decades. He said it’s a clash of competing global ideologies, of freedom versus oppression. Biden gave his speech from the courtyard of the Royal Castle to a crowd of hundreds and said: “We need to be clear: this battle will not be won in days or months either.” He added: “We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead.” A White House official commented to the press about Biden’s comment on Putin, clarifying: “The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Zelensky late on Saturday, in a new video address, reminded his European “partners” that Ukraine is in dire need of more military assistance -urging them to provide at least 1 percent of all NATO aircraft, tanks and weapons to Ukraine. Zelensky reiterated that Europe has what Ukraine needs and that it’s all sitting in storage in Europe. As Zelensky commented: “This is what our partners have. This is what is covered with dust at their storage facilities. After all, this is all for freedom not only in Ukraine – this is for freedom in Europe. Because it cannot be acceptable for everyone on the continent if the Baltic states Poland, Slovakia and the whole of Eastern Europe are at risk with a clash of the Russian invaders.”
Zelensky stressed that fearing Putin will not win the war for Ukraine. Analysts have also said that “appeasement” is a mistake that lets the Russian leader get away with whatever he wants. Zelensky lauded all Ukrainian citizens and government officials valiantly defending the country from Russian assaults. He said: “I am grateful to each of them. I wish at least a percentage of their courage to those who have been thinking for 31 days how to transfer a dozen or two planes or tanks.” On stepped up military assistance that Zelensky said Ukraine badly needs, he remarked: “At risk only because they left only 1 percent of all NATO aircraft and 1 percent of all NATO tanks somewhere in their hangars. One percent. We did not ask for more. And we do not ask for more. And we have already been waiting for 31 days.”
