News - Middle East: The Kremlin has blasted as “alarming” recent remarks by US President Joe Biden that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power,” amid Moscow’s ongoing military operation in neighboring Ukraine.

At the end of his speech from the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, Biden on Saturday denounced Putin over Russia's military operation in Ukraine, saying, “For God's sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.”

The provocative remark swiftly prompted the Kremlin to react in fury and warn that such rhetoric would narrow the window for bilateral relations. “A head of state should stay sober,” the Kremlin snapped back.

In an attempt to clarify Biden’s remarks, the White House shortly after said that Washington was not seeking regime change in Russia. However, the comments were met again with Moscow’s criticism on Monday when Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “This is a statement that is certainly alarming.”

“We will continue to track the statements of the US president in the most attentive way,” Peskov further told reporters at a press conference in Moscow.
Earlier, former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, accused Washington of trying to rip apart Russia.

Russia’s Security Council chief Nikolai Patrushev, for his part, also said that the US sought to bring about a “color revolution” like those in Georgia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet states.

Putin announced the “special military operation” on February 24 aimed at the “demilitarization” of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, largely populated by ethnic Russians, in eastern Ukraine. In 2014, the two regions – collectively known as the Donbas – declared themselves new republics, refusing to recognize Ukraine’s Western-backed government.

The US and its European allies have labeled the military operation as "Putin’s land grab," saying it has so far been poorly executed because the Kremlin underestimated Ukrainian resistance and Western resolve to punish Russia with unprecedented waves of sweeping sanctions.

Russia, however,has just recently declared that it has secured the main objectives it sought in the first stage of the operation.