US President Joe Biden with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, Poland. ANI

US President Joe Biden on Saturday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a “butcher” during a meeting with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw.

When asked what he thought of Putin after meeting with refugees, Biden replied, “He’s a butcher.”

Biden met two Ukrainian ministers in Warsaw on Saturday in the first face-to-face talks between the US president and senior Kyiv officials since the Russian invasion began.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov made a rare trip outside Ukraine, a possible sign of growing confidence in the response against Russian forces.

The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city center, opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a steady flow of Ukrainian refugees since the start of the conflict.

Biden could be seen seated at a long white table between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, according to AFP.

There were Ukrainian and American flags in the background.

The officials discussed “the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

Blinken and Austin “pledged continued support to meet Ukraine’s humanitarian, security and economic needs,” he added.

Biden is on the second and final day of a visit to Poland after meeting EU and NATO leaders in Brussels earlier in the week.

Biden also told Polish President Andrzej Duda that the collective defense of NATO was a “sacred commitment” for the United States, adding, “You can count on it…For your freedom and ours.”

Duda told him that Poles felt a “great sense of threat” from the conflict in neighboring Ukraine.

Biden is due to deliver an important speech later.

On Friday, the US president spoke with US soldiers stationed in Poland near the Ukrainian border and aid workers helping refugees fleeing the conflict.

He praised Ukrainians for showing “backbone” against the Russian invasion and compared their resistance to pro-democracy protests in China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.

“It’s Tiananmen Square squared,” he said.

He also called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a man who, quite frankly, I think is a war criminal.”

“And I think we will also meet the legal definition of that,” he said.

Biden said he would have liked to see the devastation caused by the conflict “first hand”.

“They won’t let me, understandably I guess, cross the border,” he said.

Addressing the troops, he said: “You are in the midst of a fight between democracies and autocrats. What you are doing is consistent, truly consistent.”

With the contribution of AFP

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