Ukraine, has shown “incredible courage and resilience in the face of the Russian onslaught,” retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark said Thursday, reacting to President Joe Biden’s vow to continue supporting the country’s fight against Russia.

“The president is strongly supporting the Ukrainians,” Clark told Newsmax‘s “National Report.” “He wants to stay with it. He wants to see that Russia can’t do this ever again. He wants to see Ukraine whole and free.”

Biden, while speaking during a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day, said in a speech at the American cemetery in Normandy to “surrender to bullies, to bow down to dictators, is simply unthinkable. If we were to do that, it means we’d be forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches.”

The president has moved carefully where Ukraine is concerned because the United States does not want a nuclear confrontation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Clark said, adding but “Putin has to learn his lesson.”

“Aggression can’t pay,” he said. “It can’t be rewarded.”

The Russians have a different warfare ethic, as they “just throw the forces out there,” Clark warned.

“These men that are being killed, most of them aren’t trained,” he continued. “They’re certainly not trained very well, and the Ukrainians are fighting for their lives and their country, so it’s a situation very analogous to World War II.”

The 80th anniversary celebrations in Normandy are vital because they mark the courage of the soldiers who fought in the invasion, the commitment of the nation, and then-Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commanding general “who took it all on his shoulders,” according to Clark.

“It could have failed,” he said. “It almost didn’t come off because of the weather. There was fierce resistance on the beach. We took the greatest casualties there at Omaha Beach, and yet we did it.

“This was the Greatest Generation. They didn’t ask for it, but it came to them. They lived up to the calling of democracy, and they fought for our country and for our allies and for freedom. That same challenge is facing us today, and that’s what President Biden outlined.”

Clark noted military members taking part in the D-Day invasion faced several challenges, even though they had been well trained for what they were to face.

“Some of them were anxious, some of them under stress,” he said. “I can just imagine the men waiting to jump in those gliders. I know what it’s like to be suited up and wait. They didn’t know what was happening when they jumped in. The men on the ships, some of them had been seasick. They’d been on those ships for a day.”

And when they got out of the landing craft, it was “pandemonium.”

“When you’re under fire like that, training kicks in,” Clark said. “These men were well trained. They’d practiced it. It had been rehearsed in England, so they knew what they had to do, and under fire, they showed exemplary courage.”

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