Russia-Ukraine live updates: Biden says Putin ‘cannot remain in power’; White House walks back remark

The United States will provide Ukraine with an additional $100 million in security aid aimed at helping police and border guards amid the deepening conflict with Russia.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that the new assistance will help Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs “provide essential border security, sustain civil law enforcement functions, and safeguard critical governmental infrastructure in the face of President Putin’s premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack.”

It will include armored vehicles, medical supplies, protective gear and communications equipment for the country’s State Border Guard Service and police.

“Ukrainian law enforcement officers are playing a key role in rescuing victims of the Russian government’s brutal assault, leading and protecting convoys of those displaced by attacks, and providing security to civilian areas torn apart by ruthless and devastating bombing,” Blinken said in a statement.

The United States, like many of its Western allies, has provided an increasing amount of military aid to Ukraine including antitank and antiaircraft missiles. Security aid since the beginning of the Biden administration exceeds $2 billion.

WARSAW — President Biden said Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” as he concluded a capstone speech at the end of his European trip.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said.

Shortly after the speech, a White House official sought to clarify the comments.

“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change,” the official said.

Biden’s line was not planned and came as a surprise to U.S. officials, according to a person familiar with the speech. Instead, the line was an example of Biden’s sometimes inarticulate rhetoric, not a signal of a policy change.

Since Russia’s war with Ukraine began, the Biden administration has taken pains to avoid even implying that regime change is a goal of the Western response to Russia’s aggression.

People fleeing the besieged Ukrainian city of Irpin arrived in Kyiv on Saturday after taking a humanitarian corridor to the capital. Photographer Heidi Levine, working on assignment for The Washington Post, documented people’s arrival.

Humanitarian corridors are meant to facilitate the evacuation of civilians during war, but getting through them can be a traumatic experience because there is no guarantee of safety.

President Biden warned the world to prepare for an extended battle over Ukraine, in remarks in Poland that capped a trip to Europe intended to bolster the NATO response to the Russian invasion.

“This battle will not be won in days, or months, either. We need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead,” he said, addressing top Polish officials and audience members at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

Biden gestured to the historical significance of Warsaw in what he has cast as an ongoing battle between democracy and autocracy, calling the city a “sacred place” in the history of Europe and in “humankind’s unending search for freedom.”

The president opened his speech by evoking a famous line from the first public address of Pope John Paul II: “Be not afraid,” said the first pontiff of Polish descent in 1978.

“It was a message about the power of faith, the power of resilience, the power of people in the face of a cruel and brutal system of government,” said Biden, who is a Catholic. “It was a message that helped end the Soviet repression in the central land and Eastern Europe 30 years ago. It was a message that will help overcome the cruelty and brutality of this unjust war.”

Biden also invoked the Polish Solidarity movement, which emerged as a major opposition movement in the Soviet-bloc nation in the 1980s.

“Ten years later, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Poland and Central and Eastern Europe would soon be free,” Biden said. “Nothing about that battle for freedom was simple or easy. It was a long, painful slog — fought over not days and months, but years and decades.”

“But we emerged anew, in the great battle for freedom: A battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force,” he said.

President Biden, in his Saturday remarks, warned Russia against attacking “one single inch” of territory belonging to NATO allies.

Biden issued the warning after meeting on Friday with U.S. troops who are serving alongside Polish forces to bolster NATO’s from line defenses.

“American forces are here to defend NATO allies,” Biden said. “Don’t even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory. We have a sacred obligation under Article 5 of defending each and every inch of NATO territory with the full force of our collective power.”

Vladimir Putin’s actions, he said, had had an unexpected effect for the Russian leader: They have drawn NATO allies closer.

“Russia’s brutal tactics have strengthened the resolve,” Biden said. “Rather than drive NATO apart, the West is now stronger and more united than it's ever been.”

Putin, he said, wanted “less” of a NATO presence on his border, “but now he has a stronger presence, a larger presence with over 100,000 American troops here along with all the other members of NATO.”

“In fact, Russia has managed to cause something I’m sure he never intended,” Biden added. “The democracies of the world are revitalized with purpose and unity found in months that we’ve once taken years to accomplish.”

In his remarks Saturday, President Biden accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of strangling democracy at home and seeking to do so in neighboring nations.

“Putin has the gall to say he’s de-Nazifying Ukraine,” Biden said. “It’s a lie. It’s just cynical. He knows that.”

“Over the last 30 years, the forces of autocracy have revived all across the globe,” the president added. “Its hallmarks are familiar ones. Contempt for the rule of law, contempt for democratic freedom, contempt for the truth itself. Today, Russia has strangled democracy — has sought to do so elsewhere, not only in its homeland.”

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Biden said it is “also obscene” for Putin to accuse Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of being a Nazi, noting that he is Jewish and his father’s family suffered greatly during World War II.

Citing Abraham Lincoln, Biden said it was time to have “faith again” and “put the strength of democracy into action to thwart the designs of autocracy.”

“Let us remember that the test of this moment, is the test of all time,” Biden said.

The Kremlin, Biden added, wants to portray NATO enlargement as “an imperial project aimed at destabilizing Russia.”

“Nothing is further from the truth,” Biden said. “NATO is a defensive alliance. It has never sought the demise of Russia.”

Officials in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv are reporting two powerful rocket strikes on the city’s outskirts that left a large plume of smoke seen billowing in the air.

At least one industrial facility where fuel is stored was struck and on fire, Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy, said on Telegram.

“As a result of the shelling, one of the industrial facilities where fuel is stored is burning. Housing infrastructure did not suffer,” Sadovy said. “All relevant services are working at the site. I ask everyone to stay in shelters until the end of the air raid alert.”

Lawmaker Igor Zinkevych said on Facebook that there were three explosions, and he urged people to remain calm and stay inside. Maksym Kozytskyy, Lviv’s governor and head of the regional military, said the explosions were “near Lviv, from the direction of Kryvchyts.”

Information on the cause of the blaze could not be immediately confirmed independently. According to preliminary data released by a local official, five people were injured.

In a message on Telegram, Kozytskyy urged residents to stay in shelters and stay off the street.

“Don’t take pictures of anything! Do not read information in anonymous telegram channels and do not spread it from there!” Kozytskyy added. “Everything that can be reported for security reasons, I will report.”

Lviv is regarded as a center of Ukrainian nationalism and culture and dates its official founding to more than seven centuries ago. Since the start of Russia’s invasion, it has become something of a western capital for the country. Many diplomats and others have fled to Lviv from Kyiv and other cities that have come under heavy Russian bombardment.

Photos showed a large black cloud of smoke rising over densely spaced buildings. No further details or information on potential deaths or injuries was immediately available.

In the month since Russia invaded Ukraine, military and civilian casualties have soared. But as the war drags on and the battle lines shift, no one — not the United Nations, Ukrainian government or U.S. or NATO officials — can provide an accurate count of how many people have been injured or killed.

The few public estimates, including from Western officials, are just that — estimates — and vary widely amid the fog of war. Even the United States and NATO appear to differ over how many Russian troops may have died so far in the fighting. On Wednesday, a senior NATO official told reporters in Brussels that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian forces have been killed.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under NATO ground rules, said the alliance estimates that 30,000 to 40,000 Russian troops have been killed, wounded or captured in Ukraine. It’s an estimate, the official said, based on the assumption that for every soldier killed, three are wounded.