Dans un vilain glissement freudien mercredi, le président Biden a accidentellement déclaré que les troupes russes se retiraient de “Fallujah” alors qu’elles avaient l’intention de référence la ville de Kherson dans le sud-est de l’Ukraine.
La dernière gaffe de Biden est venu après que le chef des forces russes, Sergey Surovikinon, a annoncé qu’il avait ordonné à ses troupes de se retirer de l’une des seules grandes villes capturées par la Russie après son invasion du 24 février.
“Je pense que le contexte est que, qu’ils se retirent ou non de Fallujah – de la ville de Kherson – et [Russian forces] reviennent de l’autre côté de la rivière vers le côté est de la [Dnieper} river,” Biden said while answering a reporter’s question about whether Ukraine is ready to enter negotiations with Russia.
In November and December of 2004, Fallujah was the setting of the bloodiest urban conflict American forces had fought since the Vietnam War and is widely remembered as a key moment in the US invasion of Iraq.
Approximately 12,000 US troops fought in the battle, 82 of whom were killed, while about another 600 were wounded, according to the Pentagon. The US killed about 2,000 insurgents in the battle and captured another 1,200, military officials estimated.
The president did not say what caused him to misspeak Wednesday but also said he “found it interesting” that Russia decided to announce its withdrawal from the region after Tuesday’s US midterm elections.
“We knew for some time that they were going to be going as evidence of the fact that they have some real problems in the Russian military,” Biden said. “It remains to be seen whether or not there’ll be a judgment made as to whether or not Ukraine is prepared to compromise with Russia.”
The president said he believed Russian and Ukrainian leaders would “lick their wounds” after the withdrawal before deciding “what they’re going to do over the winter and decide whether or not they’re going to compromise.”
Biden has a history of stumbling over his words at unfortunate times, which his allies have blamed on a lifelong stutter. On Oct. 25, for example, he wished happy birthday to Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to her as a “great president.”
Biden was also mocked earlier in the month for spelling out “dot” in a website address that he read off a teleprompter. During a July trip to the Middle East, he shocked listeners in Israel by speaking of the “honor of the Holocaust” rather than its “horror” and lauded the “selfishness” of American troops serving in Saudi Arabia.
