Days after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy taunted the US and its European allies, asking them to admit that they “are scared of Russia”, US President Joe Biden responded with a call to remove Russia’s President Vladimir Putin from office.

The US government, however, promptly walked back. It denied that Biden was planning a regime change in Russia even though his speech was welcome and termed “historic”.

Russia came back at the US saying a change of regime “is not for Biden to decide the president of Russia is elected by Russians”.

The US’s ally, France, in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), too, sounded uncomfortable with Biden’s speech. France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned that a verbal escalation could scuttle peace talks attempting to broker a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

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Ukraine is being cannibalised by Russia, which has blamed the West for its invasion. Russia has pegged the invasion of Ukraine at securing a guarantee against Nato expansion in its neighbourhood.

The US has been directly involved in regime changes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a military attempt at the same in Syria, where Russia came to the rescue of President Bashar al-Asad in recent times. This makes Biden’s speech in Poland’s Warsaw which is best known in history for the communist pact of 1955 that formalised the Cold War whose ghost is being seen in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine significant.

WHAT BIDEN SAID

Biden directly addressed Putin’s compatriots from Warsaw, :You, the Russian people, are not our enemy.”

“For God’s sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power.”

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In a prompt response, an official from Biden’s office, the White House, was quoted as saying, “The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

This was the beginning of a retreat from Biden’s off-the-cuff statement. His Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “I think the president, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else.”

Biden himself said, “No”, when reporters asked if he was calling for regime change in Russia.

CALL FOR REMOVAL NOT NEW

Before Biden’s statement, a US Senator, Lindsey Graham, recently said the only way Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would end was “for somebody in Russia to take this guy out”.

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Graham posted a tweet saying, “You would be doing your country and the world a great service.”

“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?”

Brutus was a Roman politician who assassinated warrior emperor Julius Caesar and was made famous for posterity by dramatist William Shakespeare through his play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, first performed in 1599.

Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was a German army officer, best-known for attempting to assassinate Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1944 during the Second World War.

Graham’s call for assassination of Putin did not evoke shock responses that could possibly have in other times. White House press secretary Jen Psaki played down the remarks saying his stance was “not the position of the United States government and certainly not a statement you would hear come from the mouth of anybody working in this administration”.

Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, called the statement as “unacceptable and outrageous” arising out of “Russophobia and hatred” in the US towards Russia.

Antonio said, “It is unbelievable that a country’s senator preaching his moral values as a ‘guiding star’ to all mankind could afford a call on terrorism as a way to achieve Washington’s goals on the international arena.”

BUT CAN PUTIN BE REMOVED?

Sudden appearance of a Brutus in Russia with the required degree of access to invade Putin’s inner cordon looks extremely unlikely if not improbable. Putin has been ruling Russia in one capacity or the other for 23 years. Having worked with the Soviet spy agency KGB, and its post-Soviet Russian successor, FSB, Putin is said to have mastery over his country’s security apparatus.

A retreat of the Russian forces inside the country’s borders will demolish Putin’s image beyond redemption. The economic hardships of the masses, not just the oligarchs, might trigger a popular uprising against Putin something similar to what brought an end to the reign of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia more than a century ago.

IS RUSSIA LOSING THE UKRAINE WAR?

The answer to this question depends on whom a reader follows and believes. Media reports from the West particularly the US, the UK and Ukraine speak a lot about the reverses the Russian forces have ‘suffered’. The Russian media reports paint a contrastingly different picture of the nation’s military operation in Ukraine.

What is clearly known is that Russia has captured large territories in the eastern, northern and southern parts of Ukraine. Invasion pressure is mounting on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

Fighting for the crucial Mariupol port has been intense for over a week. Russia is said to have shifted thousands of residents from Mariupol to areas it controls. Reports suggest that Russia wants this port city to secure a land route to Crimea it annexed in 2014.

Zelenskyy, on the other hand, is dropping hints that his government may be inching towards accepting Putin’s demands. He gave an interview to a Russian media house saying that he was ready to agree to accommodate the “neutral status” demand made by Putin.

He is demanding a security guarantee in return. This might not actually be a demand for every agreement ending war is worded to that effect in a legal sense. The next round of peace talks, in-person, are set to resume this week in Turkey.

NUCLEAR QUESTION

Despite the signs of slow progress, a Russian humiliation in the Ukraine war doesn’t look to be happening any time soon even if reports of the Russian retreat are true. Russia, anyway, has the fifth biggest standing army.

Reports that his spy and security agency officials are unhappy and getting restless over the protracting war in Ukraine remain unverified.

The Russia-Ukraine war is in its fifth week longer that Putin reportedly anticipated. Biden and the rest of the West appear to take it as their success.

But the longer the war goes on, the greater is the risk of alienation of Putin, crumbling of Russia’s economy, escalating cost of war, and also Putin tempting to press the nuclear button. The question of removing Putin from the office of Russia’s president may no longer be valid then.