The President of the United States, Joe Biden, said on Tuesday (November 10, 2022) that he believed that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had “misjudged” his army’s ability to occupy Ukraine.
“I think he’s a rational person who clearly miscalculated,” Biden said during an interview on local television.
“I think he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms … and I think he just miscalculated,” Biden said after Moscow’s recent bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine signaled an escalation of the war.
Despite this, the President left open the possibility of holding talks with his Russian counterpart on the sidelines of the G20 meeting planned for November in Bali, but made it clear that no talks on Ukraine were planned.
“I have no intention of meeting him,” Biden told CNN, adding that he would see Putin if the Russian leader wanted to negotiate the release of American basketball star Brittney Griner, who was jailed in Russia.
“If he came to me at the G20 and said, ‘I want to talk about Griner’s release,’ I would meet him. I mean, it depends,” he said.
The US government is looking for a way out for Putin before he turns to weapons of mass destruction.
Biden warned last week that the world was facing “Armageddon,” in an unusually direct comment on the dangers of Putin’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in his attempt to seize parts of Ukraine.
Putin’s mood has been the subject of much debate after the Russian president suffered a series of military setbacks in the invasion that began in February.
jc (afp, CNN)