Joe Biden’s public rhetoric during his trips to Kiev and Warsaw last month didn’t completely match what he told the leaders of the Bucharest Nine group of countries behind closed doors, with the latter reportedly including a “reminder” from the US president that Washington was not seeking regime change in Russia.
Anonymous officials told US media that Biden informed members of the Bucharest Nine – the group of nine NATO countries which ring Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine in the Baltic region and Central and Southern Europe, that the ‘goal’ of the West’s proxy war "was not to end Putin’s regime."
At the same time, officials indicated that Washington would consider even a freeze of the Ukrainian crisis a “partial win for Putin,” and that in its current state, the conflict could “stretch for years.”
“Putin has not shown any interest in ending this war, so we will continue to help Ukraine succeed on the battlefield so they can be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table for when that time comes,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
The spokeswoman’s comments stand at odds with remarks by senior Russian officials, media reports, and statements by the former prime minister of Israel that Moscow and Kiev were ready to reach a peace deal last spring, but that the talks were sabotaged and broken off by the US and its allies.
During his visit to Warsaw on February 21, Biden claimed the US and its allies were not seeking to “destroy” Russia, harbored no plans to attack the country, and that the conflict in Ukraine was Putin’s “choice” and could be stopped “with a word.”
Biden’s comments mark a stark contrast from sentiments he expressed in Warsaw a year ago, when he said of Putin that “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”
The Kremlin has had some difficulty taking successive US administrations at their word whenever the subject of “regime change” comes up. In addition to observing eighty years of US regime change attempts in dozens of countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America during the Cold War and the ‘War on Terror’, Moscow has watched US-led color revolution attempts along its entire frontier from Eastern Europe and the Caucasus to Central Asia over the past two decades. The last major successful color revolution – the Euromaidan coup in Kiev in 2014, lays at the heart of the eight plus year old conflict in the Donbass, and Russia’s decision to start its military operation in Ukraine last year.