- Harris said during a MSNBC interview that the Biden administration was "not into regime change."
- The comments came after Biden last week said that Russian President Putin "cannot remain in power."
- Biden has defended his comments, saying that his posture was driven by his "moral outrage."
Vice President Kamala Harris in a recent interview said that the Biden administration was not seeking to remove Russian President Vladimir Putin from office as Russian troops invade Ukraine.
During an interview on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" with host Joy Reid, Harris remarked on Russia nearly a week after President Joe Biden sharply rebuked Putin's leadership during a whirlwind European trip to strengthen ties with allies in their support of Ukraine.
"Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia, for free people refuse to live in a world of hopelessness and darkness," the president said at the time. "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power."
The comments immediately created an international firestorm, with many expressing concern that Biden was escalating US-Russia relations during a time when Ukraine was seeking to successfully negotiate peace talks.
Harris sought to push back against any narrative that the administration was aiming to oust Putin.
"Let me be very clear. We are not into regime change. And that is not our policy. Period," she told Reid.
The vice president continued: "Our policy from the beginning has been about ensuring that there are going to be real costs exacted against Russia in the form of severe sanctions, which we know are having a real impact and an immediate impact, not to mention the longer-term impact, which is about saying there's going to be consequence and accountability when you commit the kinds of atrocities that he is committing."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday stated that the president was simply rejecting Putin's actions.
"I think the president, the White House, made the point last night that, quite simply, President Putin cannot be empowered to wage war or engage in aggression against Ukraine or anyone else," he said while in Jerusalem.
Biden during a Monday press briefing was asked if he regretted his comments, but he swatted away that line of questioning and said that his comments in Warsaw were driven by his "moral outrage."
"Number one, I'm not walking anything back," he said. "The fact of the matter is I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing, and the actions of this man — just — just the brutality of it."
Biden in recent weeks has called Putin a "war criminal" for his invasion of Ukraine.
As of April 1, at least 1,325 Ukrainian citizens — including 120 children — have died in the country since the beginning of the invasion, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.