By Nandita Bose and Guy Faulconbridge
WARSAW/MOSCOW (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been sparring verbally, presenting starkly different views of the world and the Ukraine war, Biden promising to defend democracies and Putin asserting that the West was a threat to Russian security.
In speeches just hours apart on Tuesday, Putin in Moscow delivered a warning to the West over Ukraine by suspending its last major nuclear arms control treaty with the United States and Biden in Warsaw proclaimed untiring support for Ukraine, which was invaded by Russian forces nearly a year ago on Feb. 24.
“When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages,” Biden said in the Royal Castle of Warsaw, the day after he made a secretive surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
Challenged to respond to the invasion, Biden said the United States and its NATO allies replied: “Yes, we would stand up for sovereignty. And we did. Yes, we would stand up for the right of people to live free from aggression. And we did.
“And we would stand up for democracy. And we did,” he said.
Biden went on to say that “there should be no doubt: Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire.”
NUCLEAR TREATY
Putin, in an earlier speech to Russia’s military and political elite, accused the United States of turning the war into a global conflict and announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). The foreign ministry later said Moscow intended to continue abiding by the restrictions outlined in the treaty on the number of warheads it could have deployed.
“The elites of the West do not hide their purpose. But they also cannot fail to realise that it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield,” Putin said.
“They intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation,” he said. “This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly, because in this case we are talking about the existence of our country.”
Biden rejected Russia’s assertion that Western allies were seeking to control or destroy Russia through their backing of Ukraine. He did, however, accuse Russia of crimes against humanity such as targeting civilians and rape. Moscow has denied previous allegations by Ukraine and its allies of war crimes and targeting civilians.
REACTION TO PUTIN
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Putin’s move “deeply unfortunate and irresponsible”. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it made the world a more dangerous place, and urged Putin to reconsider.
“We are always of the view that a nuclear war cannot be won and should never be fought,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun told reporters on Tuesday.
Zhang said the New START treaty and other instruments are important for the global security architecture, adding that “on these important issues the parties concerned should continue to negotiate with each other in finding a good solution.”
Under the treaty that expires in 2026, the United States and Russia may physically check the other’s nuclear arsenal, although tensions over Ukraine had already brought inspections to a halt.
NATO allies and other supporters have sent Ukraine tens of billions of dollars worth of war weaponry and ammunition, with modern battle tanks promised and some mulling President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s appeals for fighter jets and longer-range missiles.
Russia suffered three major battlefield reverses in Ukraine last year but still controls around a fifth of the country and appears to be making progress in eastern provinces bordering Russia.
Near Bakhmut, the focal point of Russian advances in the eastern region of Donetsk, 18 towns and villages came under fire, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement on Tuesday night.
Near Avdiivka, the second focal point of Russian attacks, Russian forces shelled Avdiivka, the contested town of Marinka as well as nearby Vodiane and Nevelske, the statement said. Russian fire struck several towns and villages further west in the Zaporizhzhia region, including the contested towns of Hulyaipole and Orikhiv.
The region, part of what Russia sees as a key land link between the Crimea peninsula it annexed in 2014 and eastern Ukraine, is split between Russian and Ukrainian control.
Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.
In two speeches last September, Putin indicated that he would, if needed, use nuclear weapons to defend Russia. On Tuesday he said that a week ago he had signed a decree on “putting new ground-based strategic systems on combat duty”. It was not immediately clear which systems he meant.
The biggest land war in Europe since World War Two has displaced millions, left Ukrainian cities, towns and villages in ruins and disrupted the global economy. More than 8,000 civilians have been recorded killed, the U.N. human rights office said, adding thousands more were thought to have died.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; writing by Grant McCool; Editing by David Gregorio)
