Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that the United States is not seeking a regime change in Russia, as the Biden administration continued to walk back fiery remarks the president made about Vladimir Putin this weekend, news agency MIA informs.

“We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else for that matter,” Blinken said while on a trip to Israel. President Joe Biden, at the end of a speech in Warsaw on Saturday night, said of Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The remark triggered outrage in Moscow and was interpreted as a dramatic shift in US foreign policy.

Shortly afterwards, a senior White House official sought to clarify that the president’s remarks were not a direct call for Putin’s overthrow.