(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

U is for Ukraine! President Barack Obama spoke at Powell Elementary School in Washington, D.C., today and had some harsh words for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But the backdrop was anything but serious.

After a classroom tour, Obama stood on a multicolored alphabet carpet and said that "the course of history is for people to want to be free to make their own decisions about their own futures. … We stand on the side of history that more and more people around the world believe in," he said.

The president also spoke about his fiscal year 2015 budget, noting that he felt "this was an appropriate setting to talk about the budget" because the plan was designed with the Pre-K students' generation in mind.