Biden Says Russia Will Never Defeat Ukraine after Kremlin Suspends Nuclear Treaty

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, during an event outside the Royal Castle, in Warsaw, Poland, February 21, 2023. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, during an event outside the Royal Castle, in Warsaw, Poland, February 21, 2023. (Reuters)
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Biden Says Russia Will Never Defeat Ukraine after Kremlin Suspends Nuclear Treaty

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, during an event outside the Royal Castle, in Warsaw, Poland, February 21, 2023. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, during an event outside the Royal Castle, in Warsaw, Poland, February 21, 2023. (Reuters)

US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday Ukraine "stands strong" a year after the Russian invasion and that Moscow would never defeat its neighbor, after the Kremlin suspended a landmark nuclear arms control treaty over the West's support for Kyiv.

Hours before Biden spoke in Poland following a surprise visit to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed that Moscow would achieve its objectives in Ukraine and accused the West of plotting to destroy Russia.

Alleging that the United States was turning the Ukraine war into a global conflict, Putin said Russia was suspending participation in the 2010 New START treaty, its last major arms control treaty with Washington.

Putin, upping the ante in what has become the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, also announced that new strategic systems had been put on combat duty and threatened to resume nuclear tests.

Biden proclaimed "unwavering" support for Kyiv and a commitment to bolstering NATO's eastern flank facing Russia, while rejecting Moscow's contention that the West was plotting to attack Russia.

"One year ago, the world was bracing for the fall of Kyiv," Biden said at Warsaw's Royal Castle. "I can report: Kyiv stands strong, Kyiv stands proud, it stands tall and, most important, it stands free.

"When President Putin ordered his tanks to roll into Ukraine, he thought we would roll over. He was wrong," he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Putin's suspension of its role in New START "deeply unfortunate and irresponsible". NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said it made the world a more dangerous place, and urged Putin to reconsider.

Signed by then-US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, the treaty caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the countries can deploy.

Due to expire in 2026, it allows each country to physically check the other's nuclear arsenal, although tensions over Ukraine had already brought inspections to a halt.

The Russian leader said, without citing evidence, that some in Washington were considering breaking a moratorium on nuclear testing. " ... If the United States conducts tests, then we will. No one should have dangerous illusions that global strategic parity can be destroyed," Putin said.

"A week ago, I signed a decree on putting new ground-based strategic systems on combat duty."

It was not immediately clear which systems he meant.

Putin said Ukraine had sought to strike a facility deep inside Russia where it keeps nuclear bombers, a reference to the Engels air base. Ukraine has followed a policy of not publicly claiming responsibility for any attacks on Russian soil.

Nuclear threats

Putin, who has over the past year repeatedly hinted that Russia could use a nuclear weapon if threatened, was in effect saying that he could dismantle the architecture of nuclear arms control unless the West backs off in Ukraine.

Putin said the conflict had been forced on Russia, particularly by NATO's eastward expansion since the Cold War.

"The people of Ukraine have become the hostage of the Kyiv regime and its Western overlords, who have effectively occupied this country in the political, military and economic sense."

Kyiv and Western leaders such as Biden, who visited the Ukrainian capital on Monday, reject that narrative as an unfounded pretext for a land grab in a fellow former Soviet republic that Putin calls an artificial state, and say he must be made to lose his gamble on invasion.

Russia has suffered three major battlefield reverses in Ukraine but still control around a fifth of its neighbor. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers on both sides have been killed.

A senior aide to Ukraine's president said Putin's speech showed he had lost touch with reality.

"He is in a completely different reality, where there is no opportunity to conduct a dialogue about justice and international law," Mykhailo Podolyak, a political adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told Reuters.

"Russia is at a dead end. In the most desperate situation. Everything that Russia will do next will only worsen its situation."

As Putin was speaking, at least one Russian rocket slammed into a busy street in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, killing six people.

Ukraine's military and city authorities said 12 others were wounded in the attack, which left a pool of blood on the pavement beside a mangled bus stop.

Local authorities said Kherson came under fire from multiple rocket launchers as Putin described the West as the aggressor in Ukraine and depicted Russia as not waging war on the Ukrainian people. Russia did not immediately comment on the incident.

Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians in its "special military operation", but cities across Ukraine have been devastated in missile and drone attacks and thousands of civilians have been killed.

The West has pledged tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv.

Speaking for an hour and 45 minutes, Putin vowed that Moscow would achieve its aims in Ukraine and thwart the US-led NATO alliance in the process.

"They intend to transform a local conflict into a phase of global confrontation," he said. "This is exactly how we understand it all and we will react accordingly, because in this case we are talking about the existence of our country."



Texas Flood Toll Rises to 24 as Rescuers Search for Missing Children

Members of Task Force 1 deploy boats along the Guadalupe River in the wake of a destructive flooding event in Kerrville on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)
Members of Task Force 1 deploy boats along the Guadalupe River in the wake of a destructive flooding event in Kerrville on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)
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Texas Flood Toll Rises to 24 as Rescuers Search for Missing Children

Members of Task Force 1 deploy boats along the Guadalupe River in the wake of a destructive flooding event in Kerrville on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)
Members of Task Force 1 deploy boats along the Guadalupe River in the wake of a destructive flooding event in Kerrville on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

Rescuers were desperately searching for at least 20 girls missing from a riverside summer camp, officials said Friday, after torrential rains caused a "catastrophic" flash flood that killed at least 24 people as it swept through south-central Texas.

"At this point we're at about 24 fatalities," Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha told an evening press conference as rescue teams scrambled to locate stranded residents in the region northwest of San Antonio, reported AFP.

Some of the dead were children, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said at a previous news conference.

The county sheriff said there were "kids that are still missing", adding that between 23 and 25 people were unaccounted for.

Lieutenant Governor Patrick previously said "about 23" girls attending a summer camp in the flooded Kerr County were missing.

They were part of a group of around 750 children at Camp Mystic, a girls summer camp along the banks of the Guadalupe River which rose 26 feet (eight meters) in 45 minutes with heavy rainfall overnight.

"That does not mean they've been lost, they could be in a tree, they could be out of communication," he said.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said he was signing a "disaster declaration" to boost resources in counties in the region.

"It's terrible, the floods," US President Donald Trump told reporters Friday night. "It's shocking."

Asked if Texas would receive federal aid, he said: "Oh yeah, sure, we'll take care of it. We're working with the governor."

- Rescue efforts -

A massive rescue operation was underway in the region, with around 500 personnel and 14 helicopters helping in the search for survivors.

Texas military official Major General Thomas Suelzer told reporters at least 237 people had been rescued or evacuated by emergency personnel, with 167 rescues performed using helicopters.

Freeman Martin, director of the state's public safety department, told the evening conference: "We had a hard time getting in this morning with the weather the way it was."

"As the day went on, it picked up and we were able to rescue more and recover more, that will continue tomorrow," Martin said, calling the disaster a "mass casualty event."

US media reported that trucks had arrived at Camp Mystic to transport stranded people.

State and local officials warned against residents traveling to the area which includes camp grounds dotted along the river, with dozens of roads "impassable."

Videos on social media showed houses and trees swept away by the flash flood caused by heavy overnight rain of up to 12 inches -- one-third of Kerr County's average annual rainfall.

Governor Abbott shared a video on X of a victim being plucked from the top of a tree by a rescuer dangling from a helicopter, as floodwaters raged below.

"Air rescue missions like this are being done around the clock. We will not stop until everyone is accounted for," he said.

The Texas National Guard sent rescue teams and the US Coast Guard joined efforts as well.

- 'Another wave' -

Public safety official Martin warned of "another wave" that could impact other counties in the state, adding that "this is not going to end today".

Kerr County officials have repeatedly said they were unaware of an impending flood overnight from Thursday to Friday.

"We didn't know this flood was coming," Kerr County judge Rob Kelly said earlier on Friday, adding that the region has "floods all the time."

"This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States," he added, referring to the Guadalupe River.

Soila Reyna, 55, a Kerrville resident who works at a local church helping people who lost their belongings, witnessed the devastation unfold.

"It has been years since we had a flood, but nothing like this," Reyna said.

"Nothing like as catastrophic as this, where it involved children, people and just the loss of people's houses and you know, it's just crazy," she added.

Forecasters issued a flood warning for Kerr County, urging those living near the river to "move to higher ground."

Flash floods, which occur when the ground is unable to absorb torrential rainfall, are not unusual.

But scientists say in recent years human-driven climate change has made extreme weather events like floods, droughts and heatwaves more frequent and intense.

In mid-June, at least 10 people were killed by flash flooding in San Antonio following torrential rains.

In the northeastern state of New Jersey, at least two people were killed when a tree fell on their vehicle during a "severe storm," local police confirmed on Friday.