Biden Faces Backlash for Controversial Normandy D-Day Speech Mentioning Russian Military Losses

He just couldn’t help himself.

During his speech commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, President Joe Biden spent several minutes attacking one of America’s most important allies in World War II: Russia.

Granted, that was then, and this is now. I have no problem with rhetorical attacks against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine — but I’m certain there are better times and better places for it.

Frankly, just about any time and any place would have been better.

“America’s unique ability to bring countries together is an undeniable source of our strength and our power,” Biden said, teeing up a shot at those who are less enthusiastic about American involvement in foreign wars. “Isolationsim was not the answer 80 years ago, and is not the answer today.”

Biden then described the “dark forces” of the Axis powers in World War II in terms designed to make them sound very much like Putin’s Russia in 2024, before mentioning it and Ukraine directly for the first time.

“Here in Europe, we see one stark example,” he said. “Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination. Ukrainians are fighting with extraordinary courage, suffering great losses, but never backing down.”

He then seemed to divert from his written remarks — I can’t be certain of that, of course, but he seemed to change up his wording in the middle of a sentence. (Not, by the way, something I’d recommend this president do, but he managed to get through it without more than the usual slurring of his words.)

“They’ve inflicted on the Russian aggression — they’ve suffered tremendous losses in Russia. The numbers are staggering: 350,000 Russian troops dead or wounded,” he said.

“Nearly 1 million people have left Russia, because they can no longer see a future in Russia,” he added.

He then went into the threat that Russia and other unnamed “autocrats” posed to the world if left unchecked — which, Biden promised, would not happen — before tying his rant back to the events of the day by claiming that bowing down to bullies would betray the ideals the men who died in the Battle of Normandy fought for.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like reveling in the deaths of a country during an event commemorating a time when you and that country were allies seems a little uncouth.

Oh, wait. It’s not just me.

As it turns out, a number of people had the same problem with Biden’s speech, and some of them expressed that on social media.

Biden’s D-Day speech now on Ukraine… Why? Russia and Putin deserve all the blame and criticism they get for that war. But today, D-Day plus 80 years, maybe leave it out. Russians killed 9 of every 10 German soldiers in WWII, in which we fought on the same side.

— Simon Hankinson (@WatchfulWaiter1) June 6, 2024

While I stand with Ukraine and oppose Russia’s authoritarian regime, I think it was a bit unseemly for Biden to shout about dead Russian soldiers during his D-Day speech — for a couple of obvious reasons.

— Anthony LaMesa (@ajlamesa) June 6, 2024

Agreed. Russia lost 20 million people to the Nazis. They were our allies, and even though the Communists are awful, we should respect their personal sacrifice for the cause.

— Pradheep J. Shanker, M.D. (@neoavatara) June 6, 2024

If you wish to — and I don’t know why you would, but there’s no accounting for taste — you can watch the entirety of Biden’s speech here. (I’ve teed it up to the parts I quoted, above.)

Comments on the video on YouTube were similarly negative — there are too many to read them all, but I scrolled through quite a few pages of them without finding a single one supportive of Biden or this speech.

A comment from @jenniferdaehne8214 is typical: “I can’t believe he brought up Ukraine during his speech… unbelievable! So disgusting when those poor soldiers sitting behind him.”

There’s not much I can add to that, except maybe an “amen.”