Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine could ignite the bloodiest conflict on European soil since the Second World War ended in 1945. But to hear top Republicans at the American Conservative Union’s annual confab tell the story of the last 24 hours, the order to invade was given by the president of the United States.
One by one, in remarks from the Conservative Political Action Conference stage and in comments to The Independent, current and former GOP officeholders credited the assault on Ukraine not to Mr Putin – who announced the invasion in a televised speech around 6am on Thursday in Moscow – but to Mr Biden, despite the American president’s lack of any authority or mechanism to pass orders to Russia’s armed forces.
