Joe Biden says he won’t apologise for Vladimir Putin ‘can’t remain in power’ comment

US President Joe Biden’s comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” has drawn sharp reactions from Moscow and created a flutter globally.

Biden said of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a speech on Saturday that “this man cannot remain in power.”

But Biden has said would make “no apologies” and wasn’t “walking anything back”. “I’m not walking anything back,” Biden said at the White House, emphasizing he wasn’t voicing a policy change but that he was expressing an opinion based on his emotions from the day, according to CNN.” I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing and the actions of this man,” he said.

He added that “I’d just come from being with those families,” he said, referring to Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, Poland. “I wasn’t then or wasn’t now expressing a policy change,” Biden said. “I make no apologies for it,” he said, according to CNN.

He continued saying, “I was expressing just what I said — I was expressing the moral outrage I felt towards this man. I wasn’t articulating a policy change. And I think that you know, if he continues on this course, he is going to become a pariah worldwide, and who knows what it can become at home in terms of support.”

Earlier, Biden said, “For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.” However, the White House clarified Biden’s remarks and said that “it was not a call for regime change.”

A White House official while clarifying the remarks made by Biden said, “The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says that neither NATO nor US President Joe Biden aim to bring about regime change in Russia.

When asked whether Putin’s removal is in fact the real aim at a press meet, Scholz replied, “This is not the aim of NATO, and also not that of the American president.” Scholz added, “We both agree completely that regime change is not an object and aim of policy that we pursue together.”