Mark Savchuk: Biden right about Putin but needs to do more to arm Ukraine
Mark Savchuk of the Ukraine Volunteer Journalists Initiative says President Biden was right in the main about Vladimir Putin needing to leave power, but he needs to do far more militarily to help Ukraine fight off the invasion.
Ukrainian journalists and communications officials had a mixed reaction to President Biden's remarks that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power," but they uniformly said they still need more military support from his administration.
To conclude his speech in Poland last weekend decrying the invasion by Putin, Biden said, "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power." The White House quickly moved to say he wasn't actually calling for regime change in Russia, although Biden reiterated this week he stood by his moral outrage.
"I understand completely what happened," Mark Savchuk, the Kyiv-based coordinator of the Ukraine Volunteer Journalists Initiative, told Fox News Digital. "Biden is saying that Russia will not function normally until Putin is in power, and he's right. So basically, he said something that is incredibly obvious. As long as Putin is in power, nothing will stop. Come on. Nothing will stop as long as Putin is the president of Russia."
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Savchuk, whose work serves to get the Ukrainian government's message to the rest of the world, said he didn't think Biden's remarks were a "scandal," as Putin obviously wouldn't leave power anyway unless he was overthrown or killed.
However, he insisted more military and financial support was needed for Ukraine to fend off the invasion and defeat Russia. Although Russia has failed to take Kyiv and Ukraine's forces have fought Russia effectively on the ground, Russia continues to devastate Ukrainian infrastructure and kill civilians with artillery bombardment.
U.S. officials are also skeptical of Russia's recent claim it would reduce military activity around Kyiv, as capturing the capital is considered key to its war plans.
"What they are doing right now is basically parking their artillery 15 to 20 kilometers off our positions and then shell the s--- out of us," Savchuk said. "They have so much both artillery and weapons and ammo that they basically do this until everything is dead. And then they push forward, and then they repeat that again."
Ukraine desperately needs more of just about everything on the battlefield, including heavy artillery, armored vehicles, long-range missiles, mortars and conventional weapons like Kalashnikov rifles, Savchuk said.
"Both Democrats and Republicans support arming Ukraine … So at the moment, it's only the Biden administration," he said. "We don't know why, I'm going to tell you honestly, we have no idea why. They're definitely informed. They definitely know what we need … It's not that they don't help us. It's not true. They do. But what we need right now is super urgent."
Mark Savchuk, Kyiv-based coordinator of the Ukraine Volunteer Journalists Initiative (UVJI). (Mark Savchuk)
Biden announced Wednesday the U.S. would send $500 million in budgetary aid to Ukraine and has announced it will accept 100,000 refugees. It's already announced more than $1 billion in military assistance to the country since the invasion began last month, and Biden said U.S. troops in Poland are training Ukrainians in using Western-supplied weapons.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Western powers have not done enough through military aid or sanctions to cripple Russia. The U.S. has also not heeded calls to "close the sky," the phrase for enforcing a no-fly zone, as officials fear the U.S. or a NATO ally shooting down a Russian plane could trigger a hot war with the nuclear power.
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Another Ukrainian journalist, Volodymyr Solohub, said he personally supported Biden's words against Putin, but said they could also be "dangerous."
"From the standpoint of a Ukrainian, I totally support what he said in Warsaw," Solohub told Fox News Digital. "We all watched that with awe. From the geopolitical standpoint, it might be dangerous, as Putin might feel his back against the wall and do something even more stupid."
"Frankly, I was thinking that [President] Biden talks a lot," another Ukrainian journalist, Misha Gannytskyi, told Fox News Digital. "Even — talks too much. In Slavic tradition ... if you [aren't] ready to start a fight, don't speak. Or your enemy will understand that you are not about an action."
Ukraine has "no real military support," he added, and wondered if part of the U.S. strategy was to allow the war to drag on to weaken Russia, even at Ukraine's expense.
A view shows a residential building which was damaged during Ukraine-Russia conflict in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine March 18, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo (REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko/File Photo)
"I really think that President Biden [is] afraid of Putin too much," he wrote in a message. "Or Biden's strategy — make Russia weak by sucking its military power on [the] Ukrainian battlefield, giving Javelins [anti-tank missiles] by small portions needed only to block further Russian attacks but not giving us chance to destroy Russian troops quickly. In this case, it's just too cynical and cruel, because this strategy costs hundreds of lives of Ukrainian citizens daily."
Solohub said it wasn't "realistic" to expect a no-fly zone, although he wanted one.
"Right now, we just wish [the] Biden administration agrees to have Poland send us their MiGs," he said, adding a Ukrainian fighter pilot he recently interviewed said such aircraft would be a "major game-changer."
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The United States scuttled the deal involving MiG fighter jets earlier in March over fears it could escalate the chances of NATO forces being drawn directly into the conflict.
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