Biden calls Putin a ‘murderous dictator’ and says Russia ‘waging an immoral war’ – as it happened

Thank you for joining the US politics live blog on (yet) another busy day in Washington DC, and around the world. The Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine can be found here.

Here’s what happened today:

• Joe Biden called Russian president Vladimir Putin a “murderous dictator” and a “pure thug,” saying the invasion of Ukraine was “an immoral war” against its people.
• The US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that “intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime,” following a Russian attack on a theater full of children in Mariupol.
• Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, speaking in Slovakia, asserted there could be no such thing as a no-fly zone ‘lite’ over Ukraine, and called on Russia to ‘cease [its] horrible actions.’
• Internal divisions in the Democratic party surfaced over the level of US support for Ukraine, as Republicans ramped up their criticism of Joe Biden.
• The White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration would support international efforts to investigate if Russia’s aggression in Ukraine amounted to war crimes.

The White House press secretary was also questioned about secretary of state Antony Blinken’s backing of Biden’s assertion on Wednesday that Putin is a war criminal.

Psaki said the administration would be “supporting efforts” to investigate Russia’s actions with partners worldwide.

“Secretary Blinken gave some specifics about who from the state department will be leading that effort,” she said.

“It’s a legal process, where they review all of the evidence and then they provide that evidence and data and information to the international bodies that oversee the investigations. We would make determinations about violation of international law and whether it’s war crimes by their standards, and what the consequences would be.”

Psaki said Russia’s response to Biden’s war criminal comment, calling it “unforgivable rhetoric” was “pretty rich, coming from a country whose actions are unforgivable.”

“Whether it’s the destruction of a theater where the words children or kids was written in Russian outside, or whether it’s targeting civilians in maternity wards, if that’s not considered a war crime by human beings, what is?” she said.

Psaki addressed Biden’s scheduled call with Chinese president Xi Jinping on Friday, and says the fact Russia is asking for military help from China “is a clear sign that this war is not going how President Putin planned for it to go.”

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She said the Biden-Xi call was “mutually agreed upon” and it would address Russia’s request.

“China assisting, in any way, Russia as they invade a foreign country, is a significant concern,” she said, adding that any consequences for China if it did so would be discussed during the call.

But she said it was not yet clear that China would grant Putin’s request.

“They abstained from a vote in the [United Nations] security council. But they also echoed some of the conspiracy theories about chemical weapons and US and Ukrainian intentions. So for any country, it’s a question of where you want to be as the history books are written.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s daily briefing is under way, seemingly delayed by secretary of state Antony Blinken’s remarks about Russia’s targeting of civilian targets in Ukraine.

The early discussion is over Covid-19, and the “historic milestone” of the US delivering 500m vaccines, reaching 113 countries worldwide.

“It’s something that’s never been done before. We didn’t get here by accident,” Psaki says, calling on Congress to provide additional funding to “turn vaccines into vaccinations.”

Joe Biden was not tested today for Covid-19, Psaki says, because his encounter with Irish prime minister Micheal Martin on Wednesday - who has tested positive - was not long enough for him to be considered a close contact.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has delivered his backing to Ukraine in a nine-minute video the movie star and former California governor posted on Thursday to his Twitter account.

“I love the Russian people. That’s why I have to tell you the truth. Please watch and share,” Schwarzenegger says in the tweet accompanying his video, which had already amassed more than a quarter-million likes by Thursday lunchtime.

Starting with a tale about meeting his hero, the world champion Russian weightlifter Yuri Petrovich Vlasov, in Vienna when he was a 14-year-old, Schwarzenegger goes on to explain his deepening affection and admiration for the kindness of the Russian people.

Addressing in turn Russian citizens, troops and the country’s leadership, he says he is speaking with the same “heartfelt concern” with which he spoke to the American people after the 6 January insurrection last year.

“Moments like this are so wrong, and then we have to speak up,” Schwarzenegger says.

“Your government has told you this is a war to de-Nazify Ukraine. This is not true. Ukraine is a country with a Jewish president whose father’s three brothers were all murdered by the Nazis.

“Ukraine did not start this war. Neither did nationalists or the Nazis. Those in power in the Kremlin started this war. This is not the Russian people’s war.”

Austria-born Schwarzenegger tells the story of how his father, who fought for Germany in the second world war, was left broken by his experiences of the battle of Leningrad, in which he was wounded. He goes on to tell Russian soldiers that they have been lied to, and that thousands of them have already been killed.

“Some were told the Ukrainian people would treat them like heroes. Some were told they were simply going on exercises. They didn’t even know they were going to war,” he says.

The video concludes with Schwarzenegger pointing out that 11m Russians have family connections to Ukraine.

“Every bullet you shoot, you shoot a brother or sister,” he says.

17 Mar 202214.25 EDT

'Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime,' says US secretary of state

Joanna Walters

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is talking now in Washington and has said he agreed with what Joe Biden expressed yesterday, that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.

Blinken said that Russia’s air attacks on the theater, where the word “children” had been painted in huge letters outside, on people waiting in a bread line, on a maternity hospital are incidents that “join a long line of attacks on civilian locations in Ukraine”, echoing past merciless civilian bombardment by Russian might in Grozny, Chechnya, and Aleppo, Syria, where “the goal is breaking the will of the people”.

Yesterday, Joe Biden said he thinks the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is a war criminal.

“Personally, I agree with him,” Blinken just said.

He added: “Intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. I find it difficult to conclude that the Russians are doing otherwise.”

He also warned that Putin may be “setting the stage” to unleash chemical weapons on Ukraine and, as a “false flag” event, blame it on Ukraine instead.

It’s been a busy day so far, with the US political landscape dominated by foreign affairs, with focus on US-news related to Russia’s war in Ukraine. We’ll have more coming up.

Meanwhile, it if you want to follow our global, round-the-clock blog on the war in Ukraine itself, that is here.

Here’s where things stand in the US:

• Joe Biden slammed Russian president Vladimir Putin as a “murderous dictator” and a “pure thug” when he spoke before a St Patrick’s Day lunch on Capitol Hill just earlier.
  
• US defense secretary Lloyd Austin calls on Putin to ‘cease horrible actions’ in bombarding civilians in Ukraine.
• In reiterating Nato/US reluctance to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, Austin said, while on a trip to meet fellow Nato member ministers in Slovakia, that: “There is no such thing as a no-fly zone ‘lite’, a no-fly zone means that you are in a conflict with Russia. So from a US perspective, our position remains that we are not going to do that.”
• US lawmakers, including within the Democratic party, are divided over how far to go in supplying Ukraine with military hardware, especially the topic of second-hand Nato fighter jets.

17 Mar 202213.40 EDT

Biden calls Putin 'murderous dictator'

Joanna Walters

Joe Biden slammed Russian president Vladimir Putin as a “murderous dictator” and a “pure thug” when he spoke before a St Patrick’s Day lunch on Capitol Hill just earlier.

The US president was fresh from a virtual meeting with the Covid-struck Irish taoiseach, or prime minister, Micheál Martin, at the White House.

He then spoke prior to a Friends of Ireland lunch at the Capitol hosted by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Biden said: “Now you have Ireland and Great Britain ... standing together against a murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine ... Ireland and the United States are working together. For the first time, now, they are on the security council. Ireland’s part of the [United Nations] security council now.”

Tomorrow, Biden is due to speak by phone to China’s president Xi Jinping for the first time since its neighbor and, typically, ally invaded Ukraine.

Joe Biden’s St Patrick’s Day in-person celebration plan in the Oval Office was scuppered by the absence of the Covid-stricken Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin.

But the two leaders, both wearing green ties and sprigs of shamrock on their lapels, spoke virtually to discuss their mutual support for Ukraine, and the president’s commitment to the Good Friday agreement that came out of the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s.

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Biden, who has a better argument than most of his predecessors to claim Irish ancestry, had also arranged fresh shamrocks in a crystal bowl on his desk and several other spots in preparation for the meeting. He said he was deeply sorry that Martin had to appear on a television screen again, following the pair’s previous St Patrick’s Day meeting in cyberspace one year ago.

The conversation witnessed by the pool reporter was brief, the leaders praising each other for their support of Ukraine, and Martin hailing Biden for uniting western nations against Russian aggression.

“It’s extremely important that we keep this unity of purpose,” Martin said.

Biden later attended a Friends of Ireland lunch at the Capitol hosted by House speaker Nancy Pelosi, at which he riffed about a family tour of Ireland and praised the collaboration between the nations.

“The relationship between Ireland and the United States is a dynamic and essential partnership as much as it’s ever been,” Biden said.

“The connections that link our peoples stretch back through history and we share a common goal for the future of greater peace, greater hope, greater security, and a greater sense of who we are as a country.”

Deadly Switchblade drones, with the capability of delivering warheads at a range from six to more than 20 miles, will be among shipments of US arms to Ukraine as part of Joe Biden’s $800m aid package announced Wednesday, CNN is reporting.

Two sources said to have knowledge of the matter told the network that the drones were added to the assistance package following discussions between Ukraine officials and US Congressional partners at the weekend.

It was not specified if the drones would be the smaller Switchblade 300 model, which can reach targets up to six miles distant, according to the manufacturers, the defense contractor AeroVironment, or the longer-range Switchblade 600. CNN said both models are: “small, portable so-called kamikaze or suicide drones that carry a warhead and detonate on impact.”

Training of the Ukraine military in using the drones could be performed remotely, the network said.

At a press conference in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Thursday morning, the US defense secretary Lloyd Austin said drones had proven “very effective” against Russia’s “unjust and unprovoked invasion.”

“Our goal has been to continue to reinforce those things that have worked for the Ukrainian forces,” he said.

AeroVironment did not respond to a request for comment, but a message on its website said the company: “Stands with the people of Ukraine and all of Nato.”

Lloyd Austin was asked at his press conference in Slovakia if Russia is engaged in war crimes in Ukraine.

He said: “Well, certainly we have all been shocked by the brutality that we continue to witness day in and day out and these attacks that we’ve seen most recently appear to be focused directly on civilians.

“And of course that, you know, if you attack civilians purposely, if you target civilians purposely, then that’s, that is a crime. So these actions are under review by our State Department and of course there is a process that we’ll go through to review all this but we call upon Mr Putin to cease these horrible actions.

“Again, these are civilians and not combatants and so they should not be targeted.”

17 Mar 202212.09 EDT

Joanna Walters

Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, is in Bratislava, Slovakia, and held a presser with his Slovakian counterpart, defense minister Jaroslav Nad.

Another journalist asked about the option of supplying S-300 systems to Ukraine, the Soviet-designed, long-range surface-to-air missile system.

Austin said: “What has been successful for the Ukrainian forces is that they’ve been able to really prevent Russia from establishing air supremacy and they have done through effective use of air defense systems, both medium-range and short-range systems.”

Ordinary observers are probably a bit surprised to hear him say that Russia has not established air supremacy when it’s bombarding Ukraine from the air in ruthless fashion. Zelenskiy also clearly thinks that there is, indeed, more in Nato’s power that it could do. And more weapons are under discussion, as we’ve written.

However, Austin continued: “So our goal has been to continue to reinforce those things that have worked for the Ukrainian forces. So we are talking to a number of our allies and partners to get as much capability as we can to continue to provide help.”

Austin is asked about the long-range missile systems Russia is using to attack Ukraine and what he is discussing with allies about alternatives to the S-300 system, in order to help Ukraine in “the long-range arena”.

Austin said: “The systems that are being used by the Russians...they are using a lot of rockets, missiles and artillery. There are a number of things that can be used to counter that. We see that drones have been very effective, we’ve also seen that having the ability to conduct counter-fire with rockets and artillery is also very effective so I think increasingly we’ll see the Ukrainian forces turn to those methods to counter that.”

“The rockets, or actually cruise missiles, that you mentioned are fired from aerial platforms, I think you know that those were fired actually from inside of Russia so a no-fly zone would not have prevented that activity.”

Nad said supplying S-300 systems is being discussed and there is a willingness as long as there’s backfill to ensure the security of Nato and the individual members’ territories by replacing the systems given to Ukraine.

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Bernie Sanders knows who he would like as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2024 if Joe Biden doesn’t run, according to Politico.

Senior aides to the progressive Vermont senator, who failed to win the party’s nomination in each of the last two elections, are “privately encouraging” the California congressman Ro Khanna to run, the website says, adding that they have held preliminary discussions.

Publicly at least, Khanna, 45, has ruled out the possibility, in keeping with the tradition of not challenging or undermining an incumbent first-term president.

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But Biden, who has said he intends to seek a second-term, will be 81 at the next election, and more than half of registered voters do not expect him to run, according to a poll reported by CNN this week.

Speculation is already swirling in Democratic circles over Biden’s successor, especially with vice-president Kamala Harris’s less-than-stellar approval ratings.

Khanna is among a younger, progressive group of Democrats in the House. He is a Yale law school graduate elected to Congress in 2016, and chairs the House subcommittee on the environment. He sits on the House armed services, agriculture and oversight and reform committees.

“I think Ro would be a very effective candidate,” Mark Longabaugh, senior adviser to Sanders in 2016, told Politico, stressing he was talking only about a scenario in which Biden did not run.

“This guy has a message that’s very powerful.”

17 Mar 202211.25 EDT

US defense secretary: 'No such thing as no-fly zone "lite" over Ukraine'

Joanna Walters

Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, is in Slovakia for a meeting of Nato ministers and has just held a press conference at which he reiterated and further explained why the US will not support imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine to hold off Russian air attacks.

“We are working urgently with our partners in the Ukrainian armed forces to further strengthen their capabilities to defend themselves. “We take our obligations to Nato and to our allies very seriously and our commitment to article five [the Nato agreement that provides that an attack on one member is an attack on all and should be defended as such] is iron clad.

“We’ve sent additional US forces to reinforce our Nato allies and we have more on call, ready to go if Nato activates its response forces … to enhance Europe’s defenses.”

He referred to Putin’s war on choice and its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, just over three weeks ago.

Then in questions from the gathered media, Austin was asked by a Slovakian television journalist whether Nato will agree to repeated requests from Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to impose a military no-fly zone over Ukraine in an attempt to halt Russia’s aerial bombardment.

He said: “From a US perspective … President Biden has been clear that we would not have US forces fighting in Ukraine. Having said that we will do everything in our power to support Ukraine ... [but] enforcing a no-fly zone means that you are in combat, you are in a fight with Russia and that’s one of the things we have said, our president has said we are not going to do.

“So what this really means is that in order to control the skies you have to shut down the air defenses that are on the ground, and some of those air defense systems are in Russia and so again there is no easy or simple way to do this.

“There is no such thing as a no-fly zone ‘lite’, a no-fly zone means that you are in a conflict with Russia. So from a US perspective, our position remains that we are not going to do that.”

Here’s more about those internal political divisions facing Joe Biden over Ukraine.

Democratic senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Mark Kelly of Arizona are among those urging caution in the level of assistance the president should provide, with Kelly telling local media that too much could draw the US into a direct conflict with Russia.

Both opposed transferring Polish Mig-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, and also Nato imposing a no-fly zone over the country that have been repeatedly requested by its president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, including during his captivating address to the US Congress on Wednesday.

But the Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York and senior senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut are among several colleagues who openly support the proposed transfer, joining several Republicans who say the Biden administration needs to be doing more.

“I think there’s a clear distinction that avoids escalation and at the same time enables the Ukrainians to have a fair fight on the ground,” Blumenthal told a gathering of Capitol Hill reporters on Wednesday.

Biden is on a tightrope, having said no to sending the jets, and rejecting Zelenskiy’s no-fly zone appeal. But he announced an additional $800m in support to Ukraine on Wednesday, including military drones and surface-to-air missiles. The US has already committed $13.6bn in aid.

Predictability, the Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says the administration needs to be doing much more.

“Our own president needs to step up his game,” he said following Zelenskiy’s address to Congress, according to Insider. “We’re not doing nearly enough, quickly enough to help the Ukrainians. President Biden needs to step up his game right now, before it’s too late.”

Meanwhile, Moscow is fuming over Biden calling Russia’s president Vladimir Putin “a war criminal” for his military’s attacks on civilians.

Moscow branded Biden’s comment “unforgivable rhetoric.” Here’s a handy explainer on what constitutes a war crime, and who gets to decide who is, or isn’t, a war criminal.

Good morning, happy St Patrick’s Day, and welcome to Thursday’s US politics live blog. Joe Biden is facing divisions inside his own party, and more criticism from Republicans, over his approach to the Ukraine crisis prompted by Russia’s invasion.

Opinions are sharply divided in Washington DC over how much military aid Biden should send to Ukraine.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• This morning Biden was scheduled to welcome the Taoiseach Micheál Martin to the White House, but the Irish premier has tested positive for Covid and it’s unlikely the St Patrick’s Day meeting can go ahead. The Irish government says Martin is self-isolating and “exploring alternatives to in-person events.”
• Biden will address the Ukraine war with China’s president Xi Jinping on Friday, the White House says, as well as discussing economic competition between the countries.
• An aide in Donald Trump’s White House has been identified as the secret author of a document the former president used to push the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
• Voting rights advocates are concerned that Texas, which has passed restrictive new election laws, threw out almost 23,000 mail-in ballots in its 1 March primary, roughly 13% of postal votes received.

While we wait for the day unfold, have a read of Guardian Washington correspondent David Smith’s account of Zelenskiy’s emotional address to the US Congress.