ATHENS — For those who think President Biden’s sharp rebuke of Vladimir Putin came out of left field, let’s turn to a speech by one of America’s leading Republicans, Senator Graham, a frequent opponent of the president.Speaking at Qatar’s Doha Forum over the weekend, Mr. Graham also appeared to call for giving the Russian strongman the boot. Voice of America reported that the South Carolinian said he hoped the Russian people would rise up against Mr. Putin and effect “a change in the regime” because the way things stand now “they have a very dead future.”In Doha, Mr. Graham also said, “What you’ve seen on your televisions … is war crimes on an industrial scale,” adding, “the question for the world is: Can that be forgiven? Can we be the world we want to be and let Putin get away with this? The answer for me is no.”Mr. Biden’s forceful and highly personal condemnation of Vladimir Putin Saturday capped a four-day trip to Europe, a blend of emotive scenes with refugees and standing among other world leaders in grand settings.Summoning a call for liberal democracy and a durable resolve among Western nations in the face of a brutal autocrat, the American president said of Mr. Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”It was a dramatic escalation in rhetoric — Mr. Biden had earlier called Mr. Putin a “butcher” — that the White House found itself quickly walking back. Before the president could even board Air Force One to begin the flight back to Washington, his aides were clarifying that he wasn’t calling for an immediate change in government in Moscow, the New York Post reported.“The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region,” that official reportedly said as Mr. Biden’s motorcade made its way to Warsaw Chopin Airport for his flight back to Washington. “He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”Meanwhile, on Day 31 of the war in Ukraine, and while Mr. Biden was still in nearby Poland, Russian rockets struck a target just outside the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, a reminder that Moscow is willing to strike anywhere in Ukraine despite its claim to be focusing its offensive on the country’s east.The airstrikes shook the city that has become a haven for an estimated 200,000 Ukrainians who have had to flee their hometowns. Lviv had been largely spared since the invasion began, though missiles struck an aircraft repair facility near the main airport a week ago.Earlier this month the president referred to Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, drawing ire from the Kremlin matched by a denunciation yesterday, as spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “it’s not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia.”Mr. Biden’s address, in which he also pointedly warned Mr. Putin against invading even “an inch” of territory of a NATO nation, was a heavy bookend to a European visit in which the president met with NATO and other Western leaders and visited the front lines of the growing refugee crisis.“We must remain unified today and tomorrow and the day after, and for the years and decades to come. It will not be easy,” Mr. Biden said as Russia continued to pound several Ukrainian cities.
