On his ultimate day in Europe, President Joe Biden on Saturday sought to reassure Poland that the US would defend it towards any assaults by Russia.
He additionally acknowledged that the NATO ally bore the burden of the refugee disaster from the warfare in neighbouring Ukraine.
“Your freedom is ours," Biden advised Poland's president, Andrzej Duda, echoing considered one of Poland's unofficial mottos.
On the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, the 2 leaders spoke of their mutual respect and shared objectives to finish the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Though occasions are very troublesome, at this time Polish-American relations are flourishing," Duda mentioned.
Greater than 3.7 million folks have fled Ukraine for the reason that warfare started, with 2 million going to Poland.
Earlier this week, the US introduced it will soak up as many as 100,000 refugees. Biden advised Duda that he understood Poland was "taking over a giant accountability, nevertheless it ought to be all of NATO's accountability."
Biden known as the "collective defence" settlement of NATO a "sacred dedication" and mentioned the unity of the Western army alliance was of the utmost significance.
“I’m assured that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin was relying on dividing NATO," Biden mentioned concerning the Russian president. "However he hasn’t been in a position to do it. We’ve all stayed collectively.”
Biden visits troops, refugees
With the warfare getting into its second month, European safety is going through its most critical check since World Warfare II.
Western leaders have spent the previous week consulting over contingency plans in case the battle spreads. The invasion has shaken NATO from any complacency it may need felt and forged a darkish shadow over Europe.
Biden's nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, mentioned a speech that Biden was scheduled to provide 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 vital 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 collection of summits in Brussels. Along with the assembly with Duda, he stopped by a gathering of US and Ukrainian diplomatic and defence officers for an replace on Ukraine's army, diplomatic and humanitarian state of affairs.
Additionally on the schedule: a cease at a stadium the place Ukrainian refugees go to acquire a Polish identification quantity that provides them entry to social companies corresponding to well being care and faculties.
The stadium was inbuilt 2012 when Poland and Ukraine hosted the European soccer championship and was meant to symbolise how far the 2 nations had come for the reason that Chilly Warfare. Extra not too long ago, it served as a discipline hospital for COVID-19 sufferers.
Biden previewed his closing speech throughout appearances Friday in Rzeszow.
"You are within the midst of a combat between democracies and oligarchs," he advised members of the US 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 mentioned "the one most vital factor that we are able to do from the outset" to power Putin to cease the warfare "is conserving 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 probably the most important circulation of refugees inside Europe since World Warfare II.
He appeared to lament that safety issues "understandably" will hold him from visiting Ukraine on this journey.
Duda, who appeared with Biden on Friday, mentioned the refugees are "friends."
"We don't wish to name them refugees. They're our friends, our brothers, our neighbors from Ukraine, who at this time are in a really troublesome state of affairs," he mentioned.
The US has been sending cash and provides to assist the refugee effort. This week, Biden introduced $1 billion in extra support along with accepting refugees.
The US and plenty 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 will power Putin to withdraw his troops.
Biden was scheduled to return to Washington after his Warsaw speech.
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