WASHINGTON, US
United States President, Joe Biden said Tuesday he believes his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is a normally rational actor who badly misjudged his prospects of occupying Ukraine.
The president spoke out in a
rare televised interview as his administration looks for what he has described
as an "off-ramp" for Putin to deescalate his invasion of Ukraine
before he resorts to weapons of mass destruction.
"I think he is a rational
actor who has miscalculated significantly," Biden told CNN after Moscow's
shelling of civilian targets across its neighbor marked an escalation in the
seven-month conflict.
Biden warned last week that
the world risks "Armageddon" in unusually direct remarks about the
dangers from Putin's thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons to assist
Russia's faltering attempt to take over swaths of Ukraine.
Putin's state of mind has been
the subject of much debate after the Russian president suffered a series of
recent military set-backs in the invasion, which he launched in February.
Biden told CNN that while he
believed Putin was rational, he had underestimated the ferocity of Ukrainian
defiance.
"I think... he thought he
was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother
Russia in Kyiv, and that where he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just
totally miscalculated," Biden said.
The president even left open
the possibility of talks with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the
meeting of G20 nations in Bali scheduled for November -- although he was clear
there are no plans for talks on Ukraine.
"Look, I have no
intention of meeting with him," Biden told CNN, adding that he would
however see Putin if the Russian leader wanted negotiations over releasing
detained US basketball star Brittney Griner.
"If he came to me at the
G20 and said 'I want to talk about the release of Griner,' I'd meet with him. I
mean, it would depend," he said.
Kyiv's forces have in recent
weeks been pushing back against Russian soldiers across the front lines in the
south and in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky said Friday his troops had recaptured nearly 965 square miles (2,500
square kilometers) in the counter-offensive that began late last month.
But the Ukrainian defense
ministry said Monday that Russia had retaliated with a massive bombardment of
its neighbor, hitting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv for the first time in months,
as well as other cities across the country.
Biden spoke to CNN hours after
meeting virtually with members of the Group of 7 industrialized nations, who
heard from Zelensky on the need for intensified efforts to "create an air
shield for Ukraine" amid the barrage of Russian cruise missile and drone
attacks.
Zelensky told the G7
"millions of people would be grateful" for help fending off attacks
from the sky, and he warned Russia "still has room for further
escalation."
Washington pledged after
Monday's bloody salvos that it would up shipments of air defenses to Ukraine,
while Germany promised delivery "in the coming days" of the first
Iris-T missile shield reportedly capable of protecting a city.
Meanwhile, the United States
was leading an all-out offensive to rally as many countries as possible to
adopt a resolution at the UN condemning Moscow's annexation of Ukrainian
regions.
"We believe the time has
long passed for neutrality. There is no such thing as neutrality in a situation
like this," said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
UN countries are debating a
resolution introduced to the General Assembly by Ukraine, which the West hopes
will demonstrate the isolation of Putin's Russia on the international stage,
with a vote likely on Wednesday or Thursday.
Biden frequently takes
questions from the media, but he has held few press conferences or one-to-one
televised interviews. - AFP
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