US President Joe Biden on Thursday said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had already lost the war in Ukraine, expressing hope that Kyiv’s counteroffensive would force Moscow to the negotiating table.
Biden said that there was no real prospect of Putin using nuclear weapons and insisted the war would not drag on for years.
Biden also used a visit to Finland, NATO’s newest member, to pledge that Ukraine would one day join the alliance, despite NATO leaders failing to give Kyiv a timeline at a summit this week.
Photo: Reuters
“Putin’s already lost the war. Putin has a real problem,” Biden told a news conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. “There is no possibility of him winning the war in Ukraine.”
Biden said that while no country could become a NATO member while it was at war — with Ukraine joining now meaning a “third world war” — he vowed Kyiv would one day join.
“It’s not about whether or not they should or shouldn’t join, it’s about when they can join, and they will join NATO,” he said.
Putin told journalists on Thursday that if Ukraine were to be admitted to NATO, it would “in general make the world much more vulnerable” and boost global tensions.
Meanwhile, senior Ukrainian military officials said that they had received cluster munitions promised by the US.
“We just got them, we haven’t used them yet, but they can radically change” the battlefield, Ukrainian army commander Oleksandr Tarnavskyi told US broadcaster CNN.
Biden also spoke about the fate of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, hinting that he should be careful of poisoning following the mercenary group’s failed uprising in Russia.
“God only knows what he’s likely to do. We’re not even sure where he is and what relationship he has,” Biden said. “If I were [him], I’d be careful what I ate. I’d keep my eye on my menu.”
Biden also said he was “serious” about the prospect of a prisoner exchange for jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to get him home from Russia.
The US president was holding talks in the Finnish capital after G7 powers vowed to back Ukraine for as long as it takes to beat Russia.
Finland, which shares a 1,300km border with Russia, ended its military non-alignment and joined NATO following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden and the leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden pledged “unwavering” support for Ukraine in a joint statement after the talks.
Biden pledged that the US would remain a member of NATO, after being asked about what would happen if former US president Donald Trump, who has raised the idea of pulling out of the alliance, is re-elected next year.
In Moscow, Putin offered Wagner mercenaries the opportunity to keep fighting, but suggested that Prigozhin be moved aside in favor of a different commander, the Kommersant reported.
Putin initially vowed to crush the June 23-24 mutiny, comparing it to the turmoil that ushered in the revolutions of 1917, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.
Mystery surrounds the fate of that agreement, as well as what might become of Wagner.
Putin told Kremlin correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov that “Wagner does not exist,” when asked if it would be preserved as a fighting unit, the newspaper said. “There is no law on private military organizations. It just doesn’t exist.”
Putin spoke about a June 29 meeting at the Kremlin with 35 Wagner commanders at which he suggested several options for them to continue fighting, including that a senior Wagner figure known by his nom de guerre “Sedoi” — or “gray hair” — take over command, the newspaper reported.
Sedoi is a highly decorated veteran of Russia’s wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
He is from St Petersburg, Putin’s home town, and has been pictured with the president.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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