WARSAW, Poland (AP) — On his remaining day in Europe, President Joe Biden on Saturday sought to reassure Poland that the US would defend in opposition to any assaults by Russia and he acknowledged that the NATO ally bore the burden of the refugee disaster from the conflict in neighboring Ukraine.
“Your freedom is ours,” Biden advised Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, echoing certainly one of Poland’s unofficial mottos.
On the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, the 2 leaders spoke of their mutual respect and shared targets to finish the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Though instances are very tough, as we speak Polish-American relations are flourishing,” Duda stated.
Greater than 3.7 million individuals have fled Ukraine because the conflict started, and a pair of million of them are in Poland. Earlier this week the U.S. introduced it might absorb as many as 100,000 refugees, and Biden advised Duda that he understood Poland was “taking over an enormous duty, however it ought to be all of NATO’s duty.”
Biden referred to as the “collective protection” settlement of NATO a “sacred dedication,” and stated the unity of the Western navy alliance was of the utmost significance.
“I’m assured that Vladimir Putin was relying on dividing NATO,” Biden stated concerning the Russian president. “However he hasn’t been capable of do it. We’ve all stayed collectively.”
With the conflict coming into its second month, European safety is dealing with its most critical take a look at since World Battle II. Western leaders have spent the previous week consulting over contingency plans in case the battle spreads. The invasion has shaken NATO out of any complacency it may need felt and forged a darkish shadow over Europe.
Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, stated a speech that Biden was scheduled to present later Saturday in Poland’s capital would define the “urgency of the problem that lies forward” and “what the battle in Ukraine means for the world, and why it's so necessary that the free world keep in unity and resolve within the face of Russian aggression.”
Biden’s remarks will finish a four-day journey that included a sequence of summits in Brussels. Along with the assembly with Duda, he stopped by a gathering of American and Ukrainian diplomatic and protection officers for an replace on Ukraine’s navy, diplomatic and humanitarian scenario.
Additionally on the schedule: a cease at stadium the place Ukrainian refugees go to acquire a Polish identification quantity that provides them entry to social providers equivalent to well being care and faculties.
The stadium was in-built 2012, when Poland and Ukraine hosted the European soccer championship, and was meant as an emblem of how far the 2 nations had come because the Chilly Battle. Extra just lately, it served as a subject hospital for COVID-19 sufferers.
Biden previewed his closing speech throughout appearances Friday in Rzeszow.
“You’re within the midst of a combat between democracies and oligarchs,” he advised members of the U.S. Military’s 82nd Airborne Division throughout a go to to their non permanent headquarters. “Is democracy going to prevail and the values we share, or are autocracies going to prevail?”
Throughout a briefing on the refugee response, Biden stated “the only most necessary factor that we are able to do from the outset” to drive Russian President Vladimir Putin to cease the conflict “is hold the democracies united in our opposition.”
Biden praised the humanitarian effort as being of “such an unlimited consequence” given the scope of the disaster, which provides as much as the biggest circulation of refugees since World Battle II. He appeared to lament that safety considerations “understandably” will hold him from visiting Ukraine on this journey.
Duda, who appeared with Biden on Friday, stated the refugees are “visitors.”
“We don't need to name them refugees. They're our visitors, our brothers, our neighbors from Ukraine, who as we speak are in a really tough scenario,” he stated.
The U.S. has been sending cash and provides to assist the refugee effort. This week, Biden introduced $1 billion in further assist along with accepting refugees.
The U.S. and lots of of its allies have imposed a number of rounds of financial and different sanctions on Russian people, banks and different entities in hopes that the cumulative impact over time will drive Putin to withdraw his troops.
Biden was scheduled to return to Washington after his Warsaw speech.
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Related Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.
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