© AP
UKRAINE-WAR-BIDEN
President Joe Biden tried Saturday to assure Poland what United States will defend it once morest any attack by Russia and recognized that the ally of the OTAN bears the brunt of the refugee crisis from the war in neighboring Ukraine.
“Your freedom is our freedom,” Biden told President Andrej Duda, echoing the country’s unofficial motto.
At the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, the two leaders discussed their mutual respect and common goals of ending the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Although times are very hard, today Polish-American relations are prospering,” Duda said.
More than 3.7 million people have fled from Ukraine since the start of the war and 2 million of them are in Poland. This week, the United States announced that it would accept up to 100,000 refugees, and Biden told Duda that he understands that Poland was “taking on a huge responsibility, but it should be NATO’s responsibility.”
Biden said NATO’s “collective defense” agreement is a “sacred commitment” and that the unity of the Western military alliance was of paramount importance.
“I am sure that Vladimir Putin was counting on dividing NATO,” Biden said of the Russian president. “But he has not succeeded. We have all stood together.”
As the war enters its second month, European security faces its most serious test since World War II. Western leaders have spent the last week consulting on contingency plans in case the conflict widens. The invasion has shaken NATO out of any complacency it may have felt and casts a shadow over all of Europe.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said a speech Biden was to deliver in Warsaw on Saturday would outline “the urgency of the challenges ahead” and “what the conflict in Ukraine and Ukraine means for the world.” why it is so important for the free world to remain united and determined in the face of Russian aggression.”
Biden’s speech will cap a four-day trip that included a series of meetings in Brussels. Apart from the meeting with Duda, the US president participated in a meeting of Ukrainian and US diplomats and officials on the military, diplomatic and humanitarian situation in Ukraine.
Biden also visited a stadium in Warsaw where Ukrainian refugees go to obtain a Polish credential that gives them access to social services such as public health and schools.
