President Biden on Thursday hailed the U.S. and Allied forces who stormed the beaches of Normandy 80 years ago, saying they overcame a tyrant who thought “the future belonged to dictators.”

Mr. Biden said their sacrifice offers a stark lesson today as Ukraine faces a Russian enemy who disregards borders.

“Ukraine has been invaded by a tyrant bent on domination. Ukrainians are fighting with extraordinary courage, suffering great losses, but never backing down,” Mr. Biden said at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial on the northern French coast.

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“We will not walk away,” Mr. Biden said. “Make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine.”

The landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, played a pivotal role in liberating France and defeating Nazi Germany on the Western Front during World War II.

Mr. Biden recounted how Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower waited for a window amid rough weather to launch the biggest invasion of its kind.

“From the sea and sky, nearly 160,000 Allied troops descended on Normandy,” Mr. Biden said. “Many, to state the obvious, never came home. Many survived that longest day, [and] kept on fighting for months until victory was finally won.”

Mr. Biden, who faces a tough reelection battle in November, drew an implicit contrast between his belief in strong international alliances and his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, who has portrayed alliances in transactional terms.

D-Day was “a powerful illustration of how alliances, real alliances, make us stronger,” Mr. Biden said. “A lesson that I pray we Americans never forget.”

Mr. Biden also paid homage to U.S. servicemen and women of color who played a role in the D-Day operation.

The American cemetery sits on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach and contains the white-cross graves of 9,387 U.S. military members, many of whom died on D-Day, and the names of 1,557 service members on the Walls of the Missing.

“Hitler and those with him thought democracies were weak. That the future belonged to dictators,” Mr. Biden said “There are things that are worth fighting and dying for. Freedom is worth it. Democracy is worth it. America is worth it. The world is worth it. Then, now and always.

Mr. Biden and first lady Jill Biden joined French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, for the ceremony full of pomp and circumstance. A military band played the national anthems of both countries while D-Day veterans, dwindling in number each year, looked on.

Mr. Macron offered remarks in French. In a touching moment, the French president awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honour to a line of aging U.S. veterans. The men stood, some with help, from wheelchairs to receive the honor.

“You laid the foundation for a more just, free and decent world,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during his turn at the lectern.

Mr. Biden is also visiting Pointe du Hoc, which overlooks the English Channel. U.S. Army Rangers scaled the promontory’s cliffs to take out German forces amid the invasion.

Before his speech, Mr. Biden and Mrs. Biden greeted veterans and handed them challenge coins that he had commissioned for the day. Many of the veterans were more than 100 years old.

“A great honor, I mean it, seriously,” he said to another who wore an Army jacket and gripped the president’s hand tightly.

Mr. Biden told the veterans they “saved the world” and, at one point, joked with a veteran who had thick white curls under his cap, saying: “’Can I borrow some of your hair?”

Mrs. Biden kept the president moving at times, and veterans said they were appreciative of the visit.

“President Biden, it is an honor to meet you,” said one veteran, a former Ranger.