Joe Biden held a joint press conference with French president Emmanuel Macron Thursday in which he argued that the war in Ukraine can only end if Russia pulls out of Ukrainian territory entirely.
“There’s one way for this war to end, the rational way: Putin could pull out of Ukraine…It appears he’s not going to do that. He’s paying a very heavy price for failing to do it,” Biden told reporters gathered at the White House.
The comments come as Ukrainian and Russian forces enter something resembling a stalemate following a Fall surge that saw the Ukrainians push the Russians back from their initial gains. Biden’s comments seem to suggest the U.S. would encourage the Ukrainians to hold out until Putin relinquishes all Ukrainian territory, including those eastern regions he occupied through proxies in 2014.
During the press conference, Biden further announced his willingness to engage in a dialogue with Putin to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“Let me choose my words very carefully. I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if, in fact…he’s looking for a way to end the war,” he said.
“He [Putin] just miscalculated across the board,” Biden said. “[S]o the question is…how does he get himself out of the circumstances [he’s] in? I’m prepared, if he’s willing to talk, to find out what he’s willing to do, but I’ll only do it in consultation with my NATO allies. I’m not going to do it on my own.”
Biden added that he had “no immediate plans” to contact Putin.
Macron, for his part, greeted Biden’s announcement and the reorientation of America’s foreign policy embracing multilateralism and NATO as a welcome departure from Donald Trump’s presidency.
“The fact that you’re back on major international challenges such as health and climate, it is really a new deal,” Macron said.
Macron had spoken with ABC News earlier in an interview that aired Thursday explaining his visions for a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine. “A good peace is not a peace which will be imposed on the Ukrainians by others…A good peace is not a peace which will not be accepted in the mid-to-long run by one of the two parties,” Macron told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
This visit marked the second official state visit on Macron’s part since assuming leadership of France in 2017.