Biden calls Trump's pressure on Ukraine 'modern-day appeasement'

In first interview since leaving office, Joe Biden also reflects on his decision to leave last year's presidential race

President Joe Biden, left, with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a Nato event last year in Washington. AP

Former US president Joe Biden has said the Trump administration is appeasing Russia's President Vladimir Putin by pressuring Ukraine to give up territory as part of a potential peace deal to end Russia’s invasion.

In his first interview since leaving the White House in January, a frail-sounding Mr Biden, 82, told the BBC that Mr Putin believes Ukraine is part of Russia and that "anybody that thinks he's going to stop" if Ukrainian territory is conceded as part of a peace deal "is just foolish".

“It is modern-day appeasement,” Mr Biden said, a comparison to former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s 1930s policy of conceding to Nazi Germany’s territorial demands in an effort to avert the Second World War.

“I just don’t understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide he’s going to take significant portions of land that aren’t his, that that’s going to satisfy him.”

He also voiced dismay over how the Trump administration has often sounded a friendlier tone towards Russia than Ukraine, including the Oval Office upbraiding President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was given by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

“I found it beneath America, the way that took place,” he said.

Mr Trump’s failure to end the war in Ukraine within his first 100 days in office, as promised during his election campaign, has led to mounting frustration in the White House.

Mr Biden's interview came just over 100 days into Mr Trump's second term, during which the Republican leader has reshaped US domestic and foreign policy.

Mr Biden, who abandoned his re-election bid last year following a disastrous debate performance, said he was worried Europe would lose confidence in the “certainty of America and the leadership of America and the world”.

Mr Biden said it was a “difficult decision” to leave the presidential race four months from Election Day to allow former vice president Kamala Harris to challenge Mr Trump.

But, he added, making that move earlier, as some critics had suggested, “wouldn't have mattered”.

His interview also coincided with allied nations this week marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

“I fear our allies around the world are going to begin to doubt whether we're going to stay where we've always been in the last 80 years,” Mr Biden said.