On March 26, during a speech in Warsaw, Poland, President Joe Biden defined the stakes of the war that had enveloped Ukraine during the previous month: "In the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom," he said, "Ukraine and its people are on the frontlines fighting to save their nation. And their brave resistance is part of a larger fight for essential democratic principles that unite all free people: the rule of law; free and fair elections; the freedom to speak, to write, and to assemble; the freedom to worship as one chooses; freedom of the press."
The remarks were in keeping with a widely accepted notion that the conflict constitutes "a battle," as Biden put it, "between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression."
