Analysis: Biden's State of the Union sends powerful messages to Zelensky and Putin

Biden: The free world is going to hold Putin accountable 5:10

(CNN) --

From his bunker in Kyiv, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with Joe Biden for a strong State of the Union message.

The US president complied, declaring the Russian invasion the first unifying battle in democracy's new duel with tyranny.

Biden delivered a moving rallying cry for the free world on Tuesday night, as new explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital, where Zelensky is entrenched, fighting off a feared Russian onslaught alongside civilians who have taken up arms.

Biden's speech—and an almost unprecedented display of unity among the bitter divisions in Congress—was also a choreographed statement of determination before Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has rattled the world with nuclear sabers and triggered the largest European ground war since World War II.

• PHOTOS |

  Biden's first State of the Union address, in pictures

"In the battle between democracy and autocracies, democracies are rising to the occasion and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security: this is the real test," Biden said, but warned that there is a long fight ahead, adding, "It's going to take time."

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The fact that Biden has framed the Ukrainian conflict as the beginning of an epochal fight for freedoms threatened by dictators highlighted one of the key themes of his presidency.

He, too, paralleled almost exactly the pleas of Zelensky, who has become an iconic world figure by swearing to defend the country from him.

Earlier, Ukraine's president told CNN's Matthew Chance in a rare interview that while the conflict is regional, its implications are universal.

"(Biden) is one of the leaders of the world and it is very important that the people of the United States understand (that) even though the war is in Ukraine... it is a war for the values ​​of democracy, freedom" Zelensky said.

It was a call that Biden responded to.

The president has spoken in the House of Representatives at a time when his presidency is beset by declining approval ratings, high inflation, rising gas prices and exhaustion from a pandemic that is already raging. his third year.

He sought to extend the sense of personal command and national unity evidenced in the confrontation with Russia to support for his troubled domestic agenda, portraying a nation on the cusp of prosperous and job-creating rejuvenation.

• Russia-Ukraine War: Breaking News, Invasion Analysis and News

"I know this nation. We will meet the test, we will protect liberty and autonomy, we will expand equity and opportunity. And we will save democracy," the president said in the crescendo of his speech.

"Go for them!" he roared, a phrase apparently off the cuff after defining the state of the country as "strong."

Biden's speech was one of his surest arguments for his agenda, as he tweaked former President Donald Trump's much-mocked "infrastructure weeks" by declaring his new bipartisan law had created an "infrastructure decade," vowing to fight opioid abuse and fund the police, not defund them.

But the stony faces of Republican senators as he turned to domestic politics underscored the country's deep political disconnect, which threatens to turn this year's midterm elections into a disaster for Democrats.

Clear disagreements on issues as diverse as tax policy, gun control, abortion and health care spending only made the unified stance on Russia in the House of Representatives more striking, with many lawmakers wearing the colors blue. and Ukrainian yellow.

In a chamber that has recently witnessed vicious mistrust between Republicans and Democrats during the pandemic, there was indeed a sense of the "wall of force" that Biden said Putin was encountering around the world as lawmakers from rival parties stood up. standing up to applaud the president.

a historical moment

Upon Biden's entry into the House of Representatives, it quickly became clear that Putin had accomplished an almost impossible task: unifying most of Washington's bitterly opposed factions behind a new enemy and a common cause.

"Throughout our history, we have learned this lesson: When dictators don't pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos. They keep moving forward," Biden said.

The unity in the House of Representatives has paralleled even more strikingly the common approach of America's allies in NATO, as the democratic world — in turmoil over Putin's attempt to crush freedom — coalesced around Ukraine with the most severe sanctions and punishments ever applied to a great power.

Much of the credit for this success goes to Biden, who has spent weeks convincing allies like Germany to make a surprising turn on his Russia policy.

Biden: The free world is going to hold Putin accountable 5:10

Biden quickly adopted the role of leader of the free world, a stance familiar to presidents from decades of the Cold War, which ended in a defeat by the Soviet Union that Putin is trying to avenge.

He applauded the Russian leader's failure to divide Americans and Western allies over the invasion, explaining point by point the suffocating sanctions that have shaken the Russian banking system and economy.

And he warned the oligarchs whose wealth soared during Putin's two decades in power that he was coming for his "ill-gotten gains."

Biden addressed an audience that goes beyond lawmakers and Americans on television.

Although Putin's spokesman insisted that the Russian president would not be watching, the entire Ukraine-focused section of the speech was intended as a message of relentless US and Western determination toward the Russian leader.

And he called on lawmakers to stand up and applaud Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, who was invited by first lady Jill Biden, to honor his people's courage.

"Putin was wrong. We are prepared. We are united. ... We remain united," Biden said, warning that the Russian leader was more isolated than ever, and that he had miscalculated.

To Americans worried about Putin's nuclear rhetoric and the war's effect on gas prices, Biden said, "We're going to be fine," stressing that he would not send American troops to fight the Russians in Ukraine, but he would not it left no doubt that the United States would staunchly defend its NATO allies, including those in Eastern Europe.

But Biden also warned that the fight to save democracy from autocracy — which also frames America's growing standoff with China — would be a long one.

"When the history of this era is written, Putin's war against Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger," he said.

Biden and a fight for democracy both at home and abroad

Biden's speech suggested a turning point in history to compare with other great presidential moments before joint sessions of Congress, such as President Franklin Roosevelt's call for a declaration of war against Japan in 1941, or Harry Truman's coining of a doctrine of support for free peoples by the United States before a joint session of Congress in 1947. Truman's speech formed the basis of Cold War policy in a decades-long ideological struggle against the Soviet Union, a project that Biden revived this Tuesday for a new era.

Even more poignantly, Biden spoke from a location in the House that was desecrated just over a year ago by Trump's insurgents.

His rampage showed that the fight for democracy is not just an abstract concept at stake in a war thousands of miles away, but also raging at home.

Broad support in the House of Representatives for Biden's defense of free-world values ​​is paralleled at home.

A new CNN/SSRS poll shows that 83% of those surveyed are in favor of increasing sanctions against Russia after the invasion, although only 42% are at least moderately confident that Biden will make the right decisions in the conflict.

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Although Biden's speech was a celebration of the global united front against Putin - which was perceived as a rallying cry, but could be seen as overly triumphalist by Russians facing spiraling inflation due to global sanctions - it did not pointed out a way out of the conflict.

There was no sense that the president was trying to plot a diplomatic off-ramp for the Russian leader or to suggest that behavioral changes in Moscow might lead to relief from suffocating sanctions.

It was also notable that the president did not directly mention Putin's decision to order the Russian nuclear arsenal raised on alert amid concern about this mood in Western capitals.

It is clear that Biden did not want to further antagonize the Russian leader.

He moved on after Ukraine to address the high prices and supply chain slowdowns that have dismayed many Americans for weeks, saying at one point, "I get it," referring to the misery of high inflation.

Given the national polarization, compounded by Trump's relentless lies that Biden is an illegitimate commander-in-chief, and the strong headwinds facing Democrats in November, it is unlikely that this State of the Union revives Biden's political fortunes.

But for decades to come, the speech will most likely be remembered as the moment when the West was revived in the face of a new and potentially long-standing threat to democracy from tyranny.

"Now is the moment. Our moment of responsibility. Our test of determination and conscience, of history itself," Biden said at the end of his speech.

"It is in this moment that (the) character of this generation is formed, our purpose is found, our future is forged."

"I know this nation. We will pass this test."

Joe Biden Vladimir Putin