Joe Biden said Putin was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches on December 25.
Washington:
US President Joe Biden said Thursday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s order for a two-day Orthodox Christmas ceasefire in Ukraine was an attempt to find breathing space for his war effort.
“He was ready to bomb hospitals and nurseries and churches on December 25” and on New Year’s Day, Biden said: “I think he’s trying to find some oxygen.”
State Department spokesman Ned Price described Putin’s ceasefire as “cynical”, saying, “We have little confidence in the intent behind this announcement.”
He expressed concern that Russia would use the break to “regroup, rest and eventually attack again” and said Putin may be trying to “fool the world” into making it seem like he wants peace. Huh.
“This does not appear to be a change in the tide of the war,” he said.
“If Russia was really serious about peace, about ending this war, it would withdraw its forces from the sovereign territory of Ukraine.”
The United States also condemned the Wagner Group – a mercenary organization close to Putin that is under US sanctions – for announcing that it had coordinated the release of the first group of Russian prisoners who had fought in Ukraine in exchange for Apology was accepted.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared in a video speaking to an assembly of men – some wounded and whose faces were blurred out.
“We’ll just see it as a barbaric tactic,” Price said, predicting that many prisoners would die at the front.
“Even if there are tens of thousands of forces that could come under Wagner’s control – under Mr. Prigozhin’s control – these are not forces that would be in a position to turn the tide of war. These are not forces that are trained,” Price said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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