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U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday offered to sit down with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin‘ to end the war in Ukraine that has led to a severe humanitarian crisis.
What Happened: After hosting his French counterpart for a state dinner at the White House on Thursday, Biden condemned Putin’s war in Ukraine in a joint statement with Emmanuel Macron and offered to find a way around to end the war.
“I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war,” Biden said, adding that the Russian leader “hasn’t done that yet.”
“If that’s the case, in consultation with my French and my NATO friends, I’ll be happy to sit down with Putin to see what he wants — has in mind. He hasn’t done that yet,” he added.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and France presidents said they were committed to holding Moscow to account “for widely documented atrocities and war crimes, committed both by its regular armed forces and by its proxies” in Kyiv.
Biden added that Washington and Paris are facing down Putin’s “grasping ambition” for conquest and defending the democratic values and universal human rights as the Kremlin’s blistering attack continued in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy‘s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak clarified that between 10,000 and 13,000 Ukrainian troops had died after E.U. Commission head Ursula Von der Leyen said that 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed.
The Commission also later issued a clarification saying this was a mistake, and the figure referred to both killed and injured.
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Image and article originally from www.benzinga.com. Read the original article here.