Biden speech gets wartime overtone

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will loom over all else when President Biden steps into the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday evening to deliver his first State of the Union address.

There are other issues that Biden wants and needs to speak about, given that his approval ratings are at a low ebb and the nation is polarized and weary.

But the Ukraine crisis is of such magnitude that it will dwarf every other topic. One of the biggest military clashes in Europe since the end of the Second World War, it is being brought home in a visceral way, minute-by-minute, on Americans’ TV screens and cellphones.