Moscow must suffer “a strategic failure” during its military campaign in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden has said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “assault on Ukraine is a challenge to the peace and stability everywhere in the world,” Biden told reporters during his trip to Jerusalem on Thursday.
Biden has also promised to continue supporting Kiev. “The free world must sustain a resolve to help Ukraine defend its democracy,” he said.
Ahead of the meeting, news website Axios, citing US officials, reported that Biden would ask Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid to increase military aid to Ukraine.
The Israeli government announced this week that it would send helmets, flak jackets, gas masks and other protective gear to Ukraine. Israel, however, has so far refused to supply Kiev with offensive weapons or impose sanctions on Moscow.
Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg last month, Putin insisted that “all of the objectives of [Russia’s] military operation will be accomplished.”
At a government meeting last week, Putin also said: “We’re hearing today that they want to defeat us on the battlefield. Well, what can be said here? They can try.”
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.
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