US President Joe Biden, in his maiden State of the Union Address, accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of waging a “premeditated and unprovoked” war against Ukraine, and said that the United States is ready to tackle the challenge posed by him.
Addressing the joint session of the Congress in his first State of the Union, President Biden said: “Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson – when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving. And, the costs and threats to America and the world keep rising.”
“That’s why the NATO Alliance was created to secure peace and stability in Europe after World War II. The United States is a member along with 29 other nations. It matters. American diplomacy matters,” Biden said, hitting out at his Russian counterpart.
“Putin’s war was premeditated and unprovoked. He rejected efforts at diplomacy. He thought the West and NATO wouldn’t respond. And, he thought he could divide us here at home. Putin was wrong. We were ready,” Joe Biden said.
Stressing that Putin badly “miscalculated” the attack on Ukraine, the US President said: “Putin thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.”
“In this struggle as President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy said in his speech to the European Parliament ‘Light will win over darkness.’ The Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States is here tonight. Let each of us here tonight in this Chamber send an unmistakable signal to Ukraine and to the world,” President Biden said, as the packed house of lawmakers erupted in applause.
Th he US and its allies prepared extensively and carefully, Biden highlighted, while adding: “We spent months building a coalition of other freedom-loving nations from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa to confront Putin.”
“We countered Russia’s lies with truth. And now that he has acted the free world is holding him accountable,” the 79-year-old American premier said, sparking another round of applause from the house.
“Together with our allies -we are right now enforcing powerful economic sanctions. We are cutting off Russia’s largest banks from the international financial system. Preventing Russia’s central bank from defending the Russian Ruble making Putin’s $630 Billion “war fund” worthless,” Biden said.
“We are choking off Russia’s access to technology that will sap its economic strength and weaken its military for years to come. Tonight I say to the Russian oligarchs and corrupt leaders who have bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime no more,” he added.
President Biden also branded Vladimir Putin as a “dictator” and warned Russia’s billionaires that he was coming after their yachts and private jets.
“A Russian dictator, invading a foreign country, has costs around the world,” Biden told lawmakers in his address, promising “robust action to make sure the pain of our sanctions is targeted at Russia’s economy.”
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