A UK cabinet minister distanced the government from Joe Biden’s call that Russia’s Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power” amid criticism that the comment could bolster the Kremlin.
Though no government figure has been overtly critical of the comments – unlike the French president, Emmanuel Macron – Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, said it was “for the Russian people to decide how they are governed” after the unscripted remark from Biden at a speech in Poland on Saturday, which the White House later said was not a call for regime change.
“I think that’s up to the Russian people,” Zahawi told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday. “The Russian people, I think, are pretty fed up with what is happening in Ukraine, this illegal invasion, the destruction of their own livelihoods, their economy is collapsing around them and I think the Russian people will decide the fate of Putin and his cronies.”
Boris Johnson and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, have promised further measures this week to ease the humanitarian crisis caused by Russia’s invasion and to continue the economic squeeze on Moscow.
On Monday, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Steve Barclay, is to write to public sector bodies and local authorities to ask them to review any commercial connections with Russian interests, the Guardian understands.
The UK attorney general, Suella Braverman, also announced on Sunday that Sir Howard Morrison QC, a former international criminal court judge, will act as an independent adviser to the Ukrainian prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova.
Royal Navy ships have also delivered military supplies to Nato to bolster security in the Baltic Sea, including bringing military vehicles and equipment to resupply the UK-led Nato battlegroup in Estonia.
Biden’s comments at a speech in Warsaw came as Russia fired missiles aimed at the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, 40 miles from the Polish border. The city is the most pro-western in the country and the base of many western journalists, with strikes intended to send a clear signal to the White House.
In what seemed to be a dramatic shift in US policy, Biden also appeared to urge those around the Russian president to oust him from the Kremlin. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said. US officials later said that the president had been talking about the need for Putin to lose power over Ukrainian territory and in the wider region.
Zahawi stopped short of saying Biden had been wrong to make the call. He said: “It’s an illegal invasion of Ukraine and that must end, and I think that’s what the president was talking about.”
Some have voiced fears that the speech would bolster Putin domestically. Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the Commons defence select committee, said it had been “unwise” to make the remark, saying Putin would “spin this, dig in and fight harder”.
The former Labour foreign secretary Margaret Beckett said she could understand what prompted the call. “I’m sure that his staff and the people around him are right to say America’s not calling for regime change, but equally I think many people will sympathise with the sentiments that led him to say what he did.”
