President Joe Biden’s approval rating on U.S. and Russia relations is 37 percent, a Thursday NBC poll revealed.
Biden’s disapproval rating on the subject is 50 percent, a 13 percentage point differential.
Overall on foreign policy, Biden’s approval rating was also marked at 37 percent, while 54 percent disapproved.
The polling on U.S. and Russia relations comes as Biden said Wednesday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during a cabinet meeting via video conference in the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2021. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
“[H]e will move in, he has to do something.” Biden said before revealing the U.S. may ignore a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.
After Biden’s statements, White House press secretary Jen Psaki quickly contradicted Biden.
“If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies,” she said.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to Biden’s statement and reminded “great powers” that small intrusions into Ukraine are not so small.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky attends the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels on December 15, 2021. (JOHANNA GERON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,” Zelensky said. “I say this as the President of a great power.”
Biden in 2020 campaigned against Donald Trump by suggesting he would stiffen relations with Putin, promising to protect American allies in the region by renewing bonds with NATO, “despite Democrats’ weak past record,” Breitbart News reported.