French defense expert François Heisbourg, who is a senior adviser at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank,
tweeted that Biden’s comments were “a highly escalatory move.” And Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the United States,
wrote that they were “quite unwise, strategically” and warned European powers that “we should not follow this rhetoric.”
What worries some in Europe is that Biden’s unscripted remark will give credence to a belief in Moscow that Washington’s goal is not, in fact, Ukrainian freedom — but a regime change in Russia.