Biden’s UN balancing act: Condemning war while advocating broad agenda

The intensifying global contest between democracy and autocracy – heralded by President Joe Biden as the defining battle of this century – took center stage at the United Nations Wednesday as the American leader used his speech to the General Assembly to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The war, he said, was a stab at the “core tenets of the United Nations Charter” and an attack on the principle of national sovereignty.

Invoking every U.N. member state’s reliance on the Charter to protect it from powerful neighbors, the president added, “This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple.”

Mr. Biden spoke just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a dramatic escalation: a partial mobilization of forces and assets and a repeated threat to use nuclear arms. That followed significant gains made by Ukrainian forces recently against invaders they have battled since