Biden says US still looking for clear answers on Putin’s next moves
By Maegan Vazquez and Sam Fossum, CNN
President Joe Biden said Thursday that he remains “skeptical” that Russian President Vladimir Putin will withdraw all of his forces from around the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, suggesting the United States is still working to fully understand the Russian military’s next moves as the war enters a new phase.
“Thus far there is no clear evidence that he’s pulling all of his forces out of Kyiv,” Biden told reporters at the White House.
Biden said, “There’s also evidence that he is beefing up his troops down in the Donbas area” — a region of Ukraine where Putin has recognized two separatist territories as independent states. “Depending on your view of Putin. I’m a little skeptical,” he added.
The Russian Ministry of Defense had said Tuesday that it has decided to “drastically reduce hostilities” in the Kyiv and Chernigov directions, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said, according to state media RIA.
However, earlier Thursday, a US defense official told reporters that Russian forces have continued to focus their strikes on Ukraine in four areas, including the capital city.
The US government on Wednesday revealed declassified intelligence indicating Putin was led astray by military advisers about how poorly the Russian military has been performing in Ukraine and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said the US intelligence community also has information indicating that the Russian leader has become aware of the misinformation, leading to a rift between him and his top defense officials.
US government officials have expressed confidence in the intelligence, with Bedingfield saying during Wednesday’s press briefing that Putin is being misled “because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth.”
Biden on Thursday said there’s some indication that Putin is self-isolating and punishing some of his advisers, but added that the US doesn’t have much hard evidence to say that with certainty.
When CNN’s MJ Lee asked the President how badly Putin is being misinformed by his advisers, Biden responded: “That’s an open question. There’s a lot of speculation, but he seems to be — I’m not saying this with a certainty — he seems to be self-isolating and there’s some indication that he has … fired or put under house arrest some of his advisers.”
“But I don’t want to put too much stock in that at this time, because we don’t have that much hard evidence,” he added.
The President’s comments came after he announced a two-part plan to provide relief for Americans at the pump that began when Russian oil was sidelined and increase American energy independence. As part of the plan, he announced the unprecedented release of oil from US reserves and steps to spur the domestic production of critical minerals needed to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles and long-term energy storage.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve release would amount to 180 million barrels of oil, roughly 1 million barrels per day, according to Biden.
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CNN’s Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
