Biden refers to Ukraine as ‘Iraq’ when asked about Putin

President Biden this week mistakenly referred to Ukraine as Iraq on two occasions, mixing up the names of recent areas of conflict.

Biden was asked Wednesday to what extent Russian President Vladimir Putin has been weakened by the aborted rebellion in Russia. In his response, he switched out Ukraine for the war that started with a U.S.-led coalition invasion into Iraq and ended in 2011.

“It’s hard to tell, but he is clearly losing the war in Iraq, he’s losing the war at home and he has become a bit of a pariah around the world,” the president said at the White House.

“It’s not just NATO, it’s not just the European Union, it’s Japan,” he added.

The White House did not respond to a request for comments on the word swap.

The president is known to make gaffes in off-the-cuff remarks, including in response to questions from reporters. He also has in the past slipped up on words before correcting himself. 

Biden, 80, made the same mistake during a campaign reception in Maryland on Tuesday night, referring to Ukraine as Iraq. 

“If anybody told you — and my staff wasn’t so sure, either — that we’d be able to bring all of Europe together in the onslaught on Iraq and get NATO to be completely united, I think they would have told you it’s not likely. The one thing Putin counted on was being able to split NATO,” Biden said.

He often speaks much more candidly at such events and tends to make news with his unscripted remarks, such as when he called Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator last week. 

On Tuesday night in Maryland, Biden also briefly flubbed the homeland of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the White House last week.

“You probably saw my new best friend, the prime minister of a little country that’s now the largest in the world, China — I mean, excuse me, India,” he said.

The president’s comments on Putin come after the mercenary Wagner Group and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhi led a rebellion over the weekend that ended through a negotiated deal between Prigozhi and Putin. The Wagner chief has since fled to Belarus.

Putin has publicly been outraged over the rebellion and it’s led to questions over what the negotiated deal means for the future of the war in Russia. 

Updated at 11:59 a.m.