Written by Phil Stewart, Brendan O’Brien, and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) –U.S. President Joe Biden stated on Sunday that there is no policy to change the Russian regime after declaring that Vladimir Putin could not remain at power.

Biden also called Putin a “butcher”, and his comments made in Poland Saturday seemed to indicate a sharp escalated U.S. attitude towards Moscow regarding its invasion of Ukraine.

On Sunday, top American diplomats had reacted to his statement. Biden was asked by a journalist as he left a Washington church service if he wanted regime change in Russia.

Julianne Smith was the U.S. Ambassador to NATO. She sought to contextize Biden’s comments earlier, saying that they were made following a day spent speaking with Ukrainian refugees living in Warsaw. Russia’s one-month-old invasion in Ukraine has driven half of Ukraine’s 44 million population from their homes.

Smith stated that Smith believed that Smith was responding to the news stories of the day in a human principled reaction. He added, “The U.S. doesn’t have a policy of Russian regime change.” It’s over.

A U.S. Secretary Of State Antony Blinken stated at a Jerusalem press conference that Biden had made it clear that Putin was not capable of wageing war. Blinken however stated that Russia’s leadership future would remain in the hands of its people.

Republicans rightly claimed that Biden’s remarks were unfortunate errors.

James Risch of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee was the most senior Republican and called Biden’s remarks a “horrendous gaffe”. He said he wished that the president had stayed on track.

CNN interviewed him to explain that “most people who do not deal in foreign relations aren’t aware that those nine words he spoke would trigger the sort of eruption they caused.”

He said that “it’s going to create a huge problem”, referring to Biden’s Warsaw statement: “For God’s sake, this person cannot stay in power.”

Representative Rob Portman is also on this committee and laments public incompetence during wartime.

It plays right into Vladimir Putin’s hands and into the hands Russian propagandists. Portman stated that the mistake was a big one on NBC’s Meet the Press.

UKRAINIAN SISTANCE

In order to avoid military confrontation with Russia during the Ukraine conflict, the United States tried to achieve a delicate balance. It expedited weapons deliveries to Kyiv in support of its military battle but did not send troops or establish a no-fly area.

That support has bolstered fiercer-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, and Russia has failed to seize any major Ukrainian city after more than four weeks of fighting.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, urged Europe to provide Ukraine with tanks and planes as well as missiles in order to defeat Russian forces.

According to United Nations, the conflict killed over 3,000 people and sent almost 3.8 million refugees. It also drove more than half of Ukraine’s children out of their homes.

Moscow asserts that Putin’s “special military operations” aims to demilitarize and “denazify” the neighbor. The West’s allies in Ukraine call it a pretext for an unprovoked attack.