US President Joe Biden was not calling for regime change in Russia when he said on Saturday that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power," a White House official said.
"The President's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change," the official said following Biden's speech in Warsaw.
Decrying Russian President Vladimir Putin's grip on power, US President Joe Biden sought to steel Europe for a long fight ahead.
Intense fighting raged in several parts of Ukraine, suggesting there will be no swift let-up in the month-old war while Biden framed the fight as part of the historic struggle for democratic freedoms in a major address from Poland as he concluded his European trip aimed at bolstering Western resolve.
"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden said in Warsaw. A White House official later said Biden was not urging regime change but was saying "Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region."
The Kremlin dismissed Biden's comment, saying it was "not for Biden to decide."
After more than four weeks of fighting, Russia has failed to seize any major Ukrainian city and the conflict has killed thousands of people, sent nearly 3.8 million abroad and driven more than half of Ukraine's children from their homes, according to the United Nations.
Moscow signalled on Friday it was scaling back its military ambitions to focus on territory claimed by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday implored the West to speed up military aid.
Four rockets on Saturday hit the outskirts of Lviv, some 60 km (40 miles) from the border with Poland just before Biden delivered his remarks in Warsaw.
The attack appeared to be the first time the western Ukrainian city was struck after so far escaping the heavy bombardment that has devastated other cities closer to Russia.
Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyy said five people had been wounded and residents were told to head to shelters after an initial strike hit mid-afternoon. Reuters witnesses saw black smoke rising from the northeast side of the city and Lviv's mayor said an oil storage facility had been hit.
Ukrainian officials later reported another strike significantly damaged Lviv's infrastructure but that so far there were no reported deaths.
Russian forces also seized Slavutych, a town where workers at the nearby defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant live, and three people were killed, Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted the local mayor as saying.
Ukrainian staff have continued to work at Chernobyl after the plant was seized by Russian forces, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has expressed alarm about the situation if workers are unable to rotate.
Russian forces also fired at a nuclear research facility in the city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian parliament said in a Twitter post on Saturday.
In the encircled southern city of Mariupol, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said the situation remained critical, with street fighting in the centre. Mariupol has been devastated by weeks of Russian fire.
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