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Joe Biden has said Vladimir Putin expected his enemies to “roll over” when he invaded Ukraine but was met with the “iron will” of its allies – as the Russian president suspended a key nuclear treaty with the US after accusing the West of starting the war.

The American president gave a historic speech from the gardens of Warsaw’s Royal Castle just hours after Mr Putin delivered a state of the nation address in Russia.

Mr Biden was speaking in the Polish capital a day after he made his highly-secretive and historic visit to Kyiv in Ukraine.

“I can report: Kyiv stands strong, Kyiv stands proud, it stands tall and, most important, it stands free,” Mr Biden said on Tuesday evening.

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‘Freedom, there is no sweeter word’

Ukraine war latest: Biden comes out dancing and declares ‘NATO is stronger than ever’

Mr Putin had earlier blamed the West for starting the war in Ukraine and claimed his country responded with force “in order to stop it”.

He added that Ukraine was in talks with the West about weapons supplies before Russia invaded its neighbour on 24 February last year.

“I would like to emphasise when Russia tried to find a peaceful solution they were playing with the lives of people and they were playing a dirty game,” Mr Putin said.

Biden says ‘democracy was too strong’

Both leaders gave speeches presenting starkly contrasting views of the war as the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches.

Mr Biden used his address to repeatedly accuse Mr Putin of underestimating Ukraine and the strength of NATO before ordering the full-scale offensive.

The US president said: “When Russia invaded it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested, the whole world faced a test for the ages… all democracies were being tested.

“The questions we faced were as simple as they were profound. Would we respond or would we look the other way?

“Would we be strong or would we be weak?”

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Mr Biden continued: “One year later we know the answer.

“We did respond, we would be strong, we would be united, and the world would not look the other way.”

Mr Biden said: “President Putin ordered his tanks to roll into Ukraine, he thought we would roll over. He was wrong.

“The Ukrainian people were too brave. America, Europe, a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific, we were too unified.

“Democracy was too strong. Instead of the easy victory he perceived and predicted, Putin left with burnt-out tanks and Russia’s forces in disarray.

“He thought he would get the Finlandization of NATO, instead he got the NATO-isation of Finland and Sweden.”

The term Finlandization has been used to refer to the decision of a country not to challenge a more powerful neighbour in foreign politics while maintaining national sovereignty.

‘Autocrats have grown weaker’

“He thought NATO would fracture and divide. Instead, NATO was more united and more unified than ever before,” Mr Biden continued.

“He thought autocrats like himself were tough and leaders of democracies were soft, and then he met the iron will of America and nations everywhere who refused to accept a world governed by fear and force.”

Mr Biden added: “President Putin is confronted with something today that he didn’t think was possible a year ago.

“The democracies of the world have grown stronger not weaker, but the autocrats of the world have grown weaker not stronger.”

Mr Biden also said Russia had committed “abhorrent” crimes in Ukraine by targeting civilians with “death and destruction” and had used rape as a “weapon of war”.

He also accused Russian forces of stealing Ukrainian children and bombing maternity hospitals and orphanages.

Mr Biden insisted the US support for Ukraine will never waiver.

Biden the Cold War warrior is on a mission to build on the success of his visit to Kyiv


Dominic Waghorn - Diplomatic editor

Dominic Waghorn

International Affairs Editor

@DominicWaghorn

As billed by White House officials, this speech in Warsaw was about Ukraine but also “the larger contest at stake between those aggressors who are trying to destroy fundamental principles and those democracies who are pulling together to try to uphold it”.

This was Joe Biden the Cold War warrior and statesman whose lifelong belief in those principles of freedom and democracy took him all the way to war-torn Kyiv this week.

He recalled the World War Two struggles for freedom in this city and vowed its example would inspire the West’s battles today.

“The appetites of autocrats must not be appeased. They must be opposed.”

His mission now is building on that stunning surprise visit and to rally allies and maintain solidarity and unity as we pass the grim milestone of the first anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion.

Russia says the West ‘released the genie from the bottle’

In his address hours before Mr Biden’s, Mr Putin said Russia decided to “protect its people and history” by conducting a “special military operation step-by-step” – as he warned that Moscow will “continue to resolve the objectives that are before us”.

The Russian president has always referred to the invasion as a “special military operation” since it began last year.

“I would like to repeat, they started the war and we used force in order to stop it,” he said.

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Biden’s secretive trip to Kyiv was disguised as a ‘golf tourney’ – here’s how it unfolded

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Putin’s state of the nation address

Mr Putin also announced that Russia was suspending its participation in a key nuclear treaty with the US which limits the two sides’ strategic nuclear arsenals.

The New START treaty caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the US and Russia can deploy.

Mr Putin said Russia was not fully withdrawing from the treaty and said Moscow must stand ready to resume nuclear weapons tests if the US does so.

The Russian president took aim at the West and said they “released the genie from the bottle” in the 10 years prior to the war, by starting others.

He claimed Western countries were painting Russia as an enemy of the state to divert attention from the corruption and socio-economic problems in their own countries.

On weapons, Mr Putin also claimed the West was “in negotiations” over the “supply of heavy military equipment and planes and anti-aircraft missile systems” before the operation began.

President Joe Biden, , and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talk during an unannounced visit in Kyiv, Ukraine
Pic:Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP
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Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv

While Russian forces have suffered three major battlefield reversals since the war began, it still controls around one-fifth of Ukraine.

In his wide-ranging speech, the Russian president also claimed millions of people in the West are being “led to a real spiritual catastrophe”, as he criticised the “Anglican Church’s plan to consider the idea of a gender-neutral God”.

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In his visit to the Ukrainian capital on Monday, Mr Biden said Washington would provide Kyiv with a new military aid package worth $500m (£413m) as he was pictured walking in the city with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mr Biden said Mr Putin had believed Ukraine was “weak and the West was divided” and “thought he could outlast us” but added – “he was dead wrong”.

Mr Zelenskyy said he discussed long-range weapons with Mr Biden and described negotiations as “very fruitful”.

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Donald Trump’s tariffs will have consequences for globalisation, the US economy and geopolitics

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Donald Trump's tariffs will have consequences for globalisation, the US economy and geopolitics

For decades, trade and trade policy has been an economic and political backwater – decidedly boring, seemingly uncontroversial. 

Trade was mostly free and getting freer, tariffs were getting lower and lower, and the world was becoming more, not less, globalised.

But alongside those long-term trends, there were some serious consequences.

Trump latest: US president announces sweeping global trade tariffs

Mature, developed economies like the UK and US became ever more reliant on cheap imports from China and, in the process, saw their manufacturing sectors shrink.

Large swathes of the rust belt in the US – and much of the Midlands and North of England – were hollowed out.

And to some extent that’s where the story of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” really began – with the notion that free trade and globalisation had a darker side, a side he wants to remedy via tariffs.

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Trump’s tariffs: Ed Conway analysis

He imposed a set of tariffs in his first term, some on China, some on specific materials like steel and aluminium. But the height and the breadth of those tariffs were as nothing compared with the ones we have just heard about.

Not since the 1930s has the US so radically increased the level of tariffs on all nations across the world. Back then, those tariffs exacerbated the Great Depression.

It’s anyone’s guess as to what the consequences of these ones will be. But there will be consequences.

Consequences for the nature of globalisation, consequences for the US economy (tariffs are exceptionally inflationary), consequences for geopolitics.

President Trump with his list of tariffs for various countries. Pic: Reuters
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Imports from the UK will face a 10% tariff, while EU goods will see 20% rates. Pic: Reuters

And to some extent, merely knowing that little bit more about the White House’s plans will deliver a bit of relief to financial markets, which have fretted for months about the imposition of tariffs. That uncertainty recently reached unprecedented levels.

But don’t for a moment assume that this saga is over. Nothing of the sort. In the coming days, we will learn more – more about the nuts and bolts of these policies, more about the retaliatory measures coming from other countries.

We will, possibly, get more of a sense about whether some countries – including the UK – will enjoy reprieves from the tariffs.

To paraphrase Churchill, this isn’t the end of the trade war, or even the beginning of the end – perhaps just the end of the beginning.

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‘A genius actor’, ‘firecracker’, and ‘my friend’: Tributes paid to Top Gun star Val Kilmer

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'A genius actor', 'firecracker', and 'my friend': Tributes paid to Top Gun star Val Kilmer

Actors, directors and celebrity friends have paid tribute to Val Kilmer, after he died aged 65.

The California-born star of Top Gun, Batman and Heat died of pneumonia on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, his daughter Mercedes told the Associated Press.

She said Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered.

Tributes flooded in after reports broke of the actor’s death, with No Country For Old Men star Josh Brolin among the first to share their memories.

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Watch: Val Kilmer in his most iconic roles

He wrote on Instagram: “See ya, pal. I’m going to miss you. You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker. There’s not a lot left of those.

“I hope to see you up there in the heavens when I eventually get there. Until then, amazing memories, lovely thoughts.”

Kyle Maclachlan, who co-starred with Kilmer in the 1991 biopic The Doors, wrote on social media: “You’ll always be my Jim. See you on the other side my friend.”

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Michael Mann, who directed Kilmer in 1995’s Heat, also paid tribute in a statement, saying: “I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character.

“After so many years of Val battling disease and maintaining his spirit, this is tremendously sad news.”

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Heat co-star Danny Trejo also called Kilmer “a great actor, a wonderful person, and a dear friend of mine” on Instagram.

Cher, who once dated the actor, said on X that “U Were Funny, crazy, pain in the ass, GREAT FRIEND… BRILLIANT as Mark Twain, BRAVE here during ur sickness”.

Lifelong friend and director of Twixt, Francis Ford Coppola said: “Val Kilmer was the most talented actor when in his High School, and that talent only grew greater throughout his life.

“He was a wonderful person to work with and a joy to know – I will always remember him.”

The Top Gun account on X also said it was remembering Kilmer, who starred as Iceman in both the 1986 original and 2022 sequel, and “whose indelible cinematic mark spanned genres and generations”.

Nicolas Cage added that “I always liked Val and am sad to hear of his passing”.

“I thought he was a genius actor,” he said. “I enjoyed working with him on Bad Lieutenant and I admired his commitment and sense of humor.

“He should have won the Oscar for The Doors.”

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Elon Musk calls reports he will step back from government role ‘fake news’

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Elon Musk calls reports he will step back from government role 'fake news'

Elon Musk has called reports that he will leave his government role in the coming months “fake news”.

A senior White House official previously told NBC News, Sky’s US partner network, that Donald Trump had discussed the Tesla and X boss transitioning back to the private sector at a cabinet meeting last month.

Donald Trump walks with Elon Musk before attending a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024 . Brandon Bell/Pool via REUTERS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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The Tesla boss has headed DOGE since 20 January. File pic: Reuters

After reports emerged of the meeting, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “garbage” and added: “Elon Musk and President Trump have both publicly stated that Elon will depart from public service as a special government employee when his incredible work at DOGE is complete.”

Mr Musk added in response on X: “Yeah, fake news.”

NBC News reported that the official said Mr Musk would leave at the end of his 130 days as a special government employee.

That would be 30 May, but it is unclear if the billionaire businessman will indeed leave on that date.

Previously, the White House said that as a temporary organisation, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) would be terminated on 4 July next year – the 250th anniversary of the US.

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It comes days after Mr Musk said some members of his DOGE team were getting death threats on a daily basis.

Mr Musk had drawn criticism over his efforts to downsize the US federal government.

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‘Elon Musk has got to go’

In just weeks, entire agencies were dismantled, and tens of thousands of workers from the 2.3 million federal workforce have been fired or have agreed to leave their jobs.

A number of lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts over cuts recommended by DOGE.

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