President Joe Biden took a parting shot at Vladimir Putin as he bragged about beating the Russian president to the center of Kyiv.

In his final foreign policy speech before stepping down, Biden mocked Putin for thinking he could easily take the Ukrainian capital.

“When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he’d conquer Kyiv in a matter of days,” Biden said. “The truth is, since that war began, I’m the only one that’s stood in the center of Kyiv, not him. Putin never has.”

As the crowd broke into applause, Biden added: “Think about it! It was a long train ride but I’m the only commander-in-chief to visit a war zone not controlled by U.S. forces.”

Nearly three years since Russia first invaded Ukraine, Putin is still grappling with losses in equipment, fighters, and a weakening Ruble, Biden said.

“As I saw it, when Putin launched his invasion, I had two jobs: One to rally the world to defend Ukraine, and the other is to avoid war between two nuclear powers,” he said. “We did both those things. We laid the foundation for the next administration so they can protect the bright future of the Ukrainian people.”

Donald Trump, who is set to be inaugurated next week, has repeatedly vowed to end Russia’s war in Ukraine in just 24 hours.

Trump said his grand strategy was to threaten to give Ukraine more money if Russia refuses to accept a deal.

“I know Zelenskyy very well and I know Putin very well,” the president-elect said in a previous interview. “I would tell Zelenskyy, ‘No more. You gotta make a deal.’ I would tell Putin, ‘If you don’t make a deal, we’re going to give them a lot, more than they ever got if we have to.’”

But Russia has already shot down this plan.

Though Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said they haven’t received any official communication from the incoming Trump administration about a deal, they wouldn’t agree to one anyway.

“Judging from numerous leaks and Donald Trump’s interview with Time magazine on December 12, their idea is to suspend hostilities along the line of contact and transfer responsibility for confrontation with Russia to the Europeans,” Lavrov told reporters. “We are not happy, of course, with the proposals made by members of the Trump team to postpone Ukraine’s admission to NATO for 20 years and to station British and European peacekeeping forces in Ukraine.”

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US officials reached out to Putin over fears of Russia ‘enabling terrorism,’ report says

Aides to President Joe Biden sent a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin after they feared that the Russians may attempt to bring the war in Ukraine to the U.S., according to a New York Times report.

This summer, cargo shipments began to catch fire at German, British, and Polish airports and warehouses. Both Washington and the Europeans believed that the Russians were responsible.

In August, the White House grew concerned that the Russians were also planning to bring their sabotage to the U.S., according to secretly obtained intelligence.

The problem was simply how to get a warning to Putin, who hasn’t spoken to Biden since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In Situation Room briefings, Biden aides looked at conversations between top officials at the Russian military intelligence agency the G.R.U. outlining how shipments of consumer products caught fire, such as a small electronic massager, as a test run, according toThe New York Times.

After the Russians figured out how the packages made it past screening procedures and how long they took to ship, the plan was to send them on planes to the U.S. and Canada, where they would lead to fires after being unloaded.

The top worry was cargo planes, but passenger planes at times take smaller packages in their cargo holds if there’s space to spare.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told the paper that “The risk of catastrophic error was clear, that these could catch fire in a fully loaded aircraft.”

Mayorkas put in place new screening restrictions on cargo bound for the U.S. in August. When the warnings once again arose in October, Mayorkas pushed the executives at the largest airlines flying into the U.S. to take further measures to make sure there wasn’t a disaster in the middle of a flight. Some of the measures reached the public eye, while some didn’t.

White House officials were not sure whether Putin had ordered the plot or if he even was aware. It was possible he had not been made aware, but at this point, a major effort was started to push him to put an end to it.

Similarly to when the U.S. believed Russia was considering using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine in October 2022, Biden sent National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and C.I.A. Director William Burns to warn Putin’s aides. Several avenues were required to make sure that the message reached Putin, a senior official told the paper.

The warning stipulated that if Russia’s sabotage led to a mass casualty event in the air or on the ground, the U.S. would hold Russia accountable for “enabling terrorism.” While Sullivan and Burns didn’t state what shape the response would take, they did say it would mean that the shadow war between Russia and the U.S. would reach new heights.

The shadow war is still taking place every day, with Russia apparently looking to use sabotage to break the will of NATO countries to back Ukraine but without it leading to a war with NATO itself.

It has led to a new way of life in Europe, ending the feeling of security that came after the Cold War. The search for possible acts of sabotage goes on every hour at airports, seaports, and below the surface, as well as on the streets of large European cities.

But the fires across Europe have stopped for now, with the message getting through to the Russian leader, officials told The New York Times. What remains unknown is whether Putin halted the plots or for how long they may remain on pause. Officials also told the paper that it’s possible that Russia is simply using the time to build better devices.

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America's alliances stronger than 4 years ago, Biden says in State Department farewell

In his last foreign policy speech as president, Joe Biden on Monday made an argument that the United States is better positioned diplomatically now than four years ago.

"I've said many times, we are at an inflection point," Biden said Monday at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., in one of his final major speeches as commander in chief and at an event with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

The departing president outlined a number of foreign policy topics including NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin's ongoing war in Ukraine, the Paris Accords, Indo-Pacific alliances as they relate to China, Israel and Palestinian issues, and growing tension on the Korean peninsula.

"Today, I can report to the American people, our alliances are stronger than they've been in decades," he said. "NATO is more capable than it's ever been. And many more of our allies are paying their fair share."

The post Cold-War era "is over," he said, and "a new era has begun."

Additionally, Biden called for "a stable, more integrated Middle East."

In his four years in the White House, Biden said of his administration, "we faced crises, we've been tested, we've come through those tests, stronger in my view, than we entered those tests." He added that the United States under his administration is "winning the world-wide competition."

Biden said his administration "restored" America's leadership on myriad "priorities."

However, he briefly touched on the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal under his leadership.

"We grieve [for] all 2,461 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in the longest war in American history," Biden commented. "And I grieve [for] those brave service members whose lives were lost."

Echoing a common theme expressed in many of Biden's past speeches, the president said of America, "we're the only country on earth founded by an idea" as opposed to geography or geopolitical machinations.

In a sign of U.S. strength and a reason for optimism, more than 75 Americans held hostage overseas, at last count, have been returned to the United States after "complex negotiations," Biden added.

And Biden said that in the last four years he has conserved "hundreds of millions of acres more than any other president in American history."

Meanwhile, the war between Israel and Iran's proxy militias is reportedly on the brink of a cease-fire deal in a proposal that is "finally coming to fruition," the outgoing president indicated.

On Sunday, Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and on Monday with the emir of Qatar. Biden in his speech called for a "surge" in aid to afflicted Palestinians.

"We're working urgently to close this deal," Biden said Monday. And the outgoing administration has tried to "solve problems by diplomacy wherever possible."

On artificial intelligence, he said, "we are in the lead and we must stay in the lead." AI has the power, he added, to reshape governments, economies "and entire societies."

He also called on the global community to continue the transition to clean energy as he took aim at the incoming Trump administration.

"Some are skeptical of the need for clean energy," Biden said. "They think climate changes isn't real. They are wrong, they are dead wrong."

"The clean energy transition is already happening," he stated, adding also that China is taking steps to "dominate" the industry.

Biden's view of the world and America's role in it isn't shared by all.

The United States is "in a worse geopolitical position today than it was four years ago," Stephen Wertheim, an historian and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told CBS.

According to Wertheim, the United States is currently immersed in "a massive war on the European continent with serious escalation risks; it's back to bombing the Middle East with no end in sight," adding that America has entered into a "full-spectrum strategic rivalry with China."

But on Monday, Biden stated that he's leaving the Trump administration with a "very strong hand to play."

"And we're leaving an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure," he said, adding it's an America that "once again is leading, uniting countries, setting the agenda, bringing others together behind our plans and visions."

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