US President Joe Biden addressed the nation on Wednesday night to explain his decision not to seek re-election, to call on Americans to defend democracy at home and abroad, and to hold up American ideals, as those principles are under threat by those who have sought to overturn certified US elections and have, in part, expressed a desire to turn their backs on Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty.
“I ran for president four years ago because I believed, and still do, that the soul of America was at stake, the very nature of who we are was at stake, and that’s still the case,” Biden said. “America is an idea. An idea stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more power than any dictator... We’ve never fully lived up to it, to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it, and I don't believe the American people will walk away from it now.”
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“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term. But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy — that includes personal ambition,” he said. “So, I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.”
The president announced on Sunday he would not be seeking a second term, as the 81-year-old’s public appearances recently have led many within his own Democratic party to doubt his mental capacity for another four years. He simultaneously lent his endorsement to his vice president, Kamala Harris.
Scholz urges Ukraine talks in first call with Putin since 2022
The Republican nominee for November’s elections, Donald Trump, whom Biden defeated in 2020, fomented an insurrection on the US Capitol in January 2021, claiming that the election was stolen. Rising populist stars within his party, including his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, have railed against US aid for Ukraine.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Biden promised to keep delivering for Kyiv over his final six months and urged Americans to carry the torch of those democratic fundamentals.
“We’ll keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine,” Biden said. “We’ll keep NATO stronger and more powerful and more united than at any time in all of our history.”
Wrapping up his speech, the president said: “History lies in your hands.”
“Use it to keep the faith, and remember who we are.”
“I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China’s strategic interests,” Kuleba says at a meeting with Chinese foreign minister
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Guangzhou on Wednesday, bringing the message that Ukraine is prepared to negotiate with Russian representatives when Moscow shows itself willing to hold talks “in good faith”.
“Kuleba reiterated Ukraine’s consistent position that it is ready to negotiate with the Russian side at a certain stage when Russia is ready to negotiate in good faith, but stressed that currently there is no such readiness on the Russian side,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping last met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in mid-May of this year, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with Xi two weeks ago, very shortly after his country assumed the EU’s rotating presidency, a visit that did not have Brussels’ approval.
China widely is seen as an ally of the Kremlin, even though Xi has regularly stated that his country was “neither party nor participant” in the 29-month, full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, as early as two weeks ago, Washington accused Beijing of supplying materials to Russia directly and via North Korea.
In a press conference on July 11, Biden said “China has to understand that if they are supplying Russia with information and capacity, working with North Korea and others to help Russia and [their] armaments, that they’re not going to benefit economically as a consequence of that... I think you’ll see that some of our European friends are going to be curtailing their investment in China.”
Beijing has regularly refuted these claims, saying just last week that its position was “open and above board,” and at the same time said it was the West who was adding fuel to the fire by its regular military support for Kyiv.
At his meeting with China’s top diplomat in the country’s third largest city, a massive port just north of Hong Kong, Kuleba said that a peace agreement would economically and geopolitically benefit China.
“I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China’s strategic interests, and China’s role as a global force for peace is important,” he was cited as saying.
He added that Russia’s invasion “hinders international stability, the development of good neighborly relations, and in particular the development of trade between China and Europe.”
A car registered in the same name as a Russian defense official is blown up in Moscow
Russian independent media outlet Astra reported that a Toyota Land Cruiser registered in the name of Andrei Torgashov was detonated in Moscow on Wednesday, severely injuring the two people who had just entered the SUV.
Andrei Torgashov is the name of the Deputy Head of the Defense Ministry’s Satellite Communications Department, but the serviceman and the woman who were injured in the explosion were of no relation.
The car was blown up near a residential building on Sinyavinskaya Street in northern Moscow on Wednesday morning, Astra reported. A separate Russian media outlet reported that the car belonged to Andrei Torgashov of Moscow’s Defense Ministry’s Satellite Communications Department.
Ukrainska Pravda relayed that his department is the “89th Satellite Communications Centre of the Russian Armed Forces.”
Early reports indicated that both were hospitalized as a result of the blast: the man’s feet had been blown off and the woman had sustained shrapnel injuries.
Russian television later reported that the actual Andrei Torgashov who was reportedly targeted, told them he learned about the explosion on the news, in what was supposedly his car, and that it happened while he was at work.
“I never had a Land Cruiser and probably never will... I don’t even live in that area. I live somewhere else entirely,” he said.
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