In an exclusive interview, the first since he left the White House, the former president of the United States Joe Biden assured the BBC that Trump presses Ukraine to give territory as a way to appease Russia.
during the conversation, which occurred in Delaware on Monday, Biden said that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, considers that Ukraine is part of his country, and that anyone who thinks that he will stop doing so if he gives a territory as part of a peace agreement “is simply stupid.”
Biden spoke just when the 80th anniversary of Victory Day was fulfilled, which commemorates the end of world war II, and assured that he worried that relations between the United States and Europe are breaking under the presidency of Donald Trump, which “would change the modern history of the world.”
In the wide interview with the program Today From Radio 4 of the BBC, Biden talked about his own history in Ukraine, as well as his decision to end his candidacy for re -election in 2024 when the campaign was already very advanced, after his hesitation in the presidential debate fueled doubts about his physical state and plunged the Democratic Party in a crisis.
Biden left his candidacy when there were less than four months left for the November elections. To the question of whether I should have done it before and leave more time to choose a substitute, he replied: “I do not think it would have imported. We went at a time when we had a good candidate.”
“Things were so quickly that it was difficult to get away. And it was a difficult decision,” he said. “I think it was the right decision. I think … the truth is that it was a difficult decision.”
When asked about the current administration of the US allies, the former president condemned Trump’s calls for the US to recover the Panama channel, acquire Greenland and make Canada in state number 51.
“What the hell is happening here? What president speaks like this? We are not like that,” he said. “We are for freedom, democracy, opportunity, not for confiscation.”
Ukraine in the arrow
About Ukraine, Biden was also questioned if he gave enough support to Kyiv to make sure they could win the war instead of limiting themselves to resisting the large -scale invasion of Russia. For three years of clashes, the White House of Biden changed its position on the use that Ukraine of the weapons provided by USA that, over time, ended up raising some restrictions.
“We gave them everything they needed to guarantee their independence, and we were prepared to respond, more aggressively, if Putin act again,” he said.
Biden also talked about the comments of Trump administration members who suggest that Kyiv should give part of the territory to guarantee a peace agreement that ends the fighting.
The American vice president, JD Vance, recently presented the US vision for a peace plan in Ukraine that “would freeze the territorial lines … near where they are today.”
In Vance’s opinion, both Ukraine and Russia “will have to give up part of the territory they currently have.” The Secretary of defense, Pete Hegesh, has echoed that message, stating that returning to the borders of Ukraine prior to 2014 is “unrealistic”.
“It is modern appeasement,” Biden said in the interview on Monday, a reference to the policy of the British Minister Neville Chamberlain. At the end of the 1930s, Chamberlain tried to appease the demands of Adolf Hitler in a failed attempt to avoid a catastrophic Total War in Europe.
He also expressed concern about the fact that “Europe will lose confidence in the security of the United States and its leadership.”
The leaders of the continent, he added, ask themselves: “What do I do now? Can I trust the United States? Are they going to be there?”
Trump has said that he expects Russia to stay with the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, and last month he accused the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to harm peace negotiations when Zelensky rejected suggestion.
According to various information, the recent US proposals for a truce agreement not only include formal recognition by the United States of Crimea as part of Russia, but also the de facto recognition by the United States of Russian control of other occupied areas of Ukraine. The White House has not publicly confirmed the details.
“I have no favorites. I don’t want to have favorites. I want a deal to be made,” Trump said last month when asked about the recognition of Russian sovereignty about Crimea.
-“Yes, of course, (the Ukrainians) are angry for being invaded,” said Vice President Vance to Fox News last week. “But are we going to continue losing thousands and thousands of soldiers for a few kilometers of territory of this or that way?”
The pressure to give land not only
“A thug”
In reference to Putin, Biden said he did not understand “how people can think that, if we allow a dictator, a thug, decide that he will take important portions of territory that are not his, that will be content. I do not just understand it.”
He also said that some NATO countries that limit with Russia “end up saying that we have to reach an agreement” with Putin if Ukraine finally yields territory.
Trump has long resisted to continue with the same level of military support that Biden gave to Ukraine, with the argument that his ultimate goal is to end the bloodshed. He has previously said that Zelensky played with Biden and that “he played him like a violin.”
The tensions between the White House and the Ukrainian leader exploded to the public light in February, when Trump and Vance rebuked Zelensky and demanded that he show more gratitude for the years of US support during an extraordinary meeting televised in the oval office.
“The way it took place seemed unworthy of the United States,” Biden said about the meeting.
Trump and his senior officials have repeatedly criticized European countries for not spending enough in their own defense and depending too much on US support.
The United States is, by far, the largest individual donor to Ukraine, but European countries have spent more money, according to the Kiel Institute, a think tank based in Germany that monitors Kyiv support.
“I don’t understand how they don’t understand that alliances do strength,” Biden said about the Trump administration. “There are benefits … it saves us money in general.”
“May history judge it”
When asked about the first 100 days of President Trump in office, in which he has carried out a whirlwind of executive actions, as well as radical cuts in the size and expenditure of the federal government, Biden highlighted his own legacy and tried to draw a marked contrast between when he left the position and now.
“Our economy grew. We moved in an direction where the stock market was very high. We were in a situation in which we expanded our influence throughout the world, increasing trade,” he said about the state of the country when he left the White House in January.
Trump, on the other hand, ensures that he is promoting a necessary review of the world’s relationship with the United States, rebalanced trade, controlling illegal immigration and making the government more efficient. Last week he celebrated the milestone of the 100 days with a triumphal discourse. What do Biden think of the start of Trump 2.0?
“I’ll let history judge it,” he said. “I see nothing that has been triumphant.”
With additional reports by Kirsty Mackenzie and Gareth Evans.
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