US President Joe Biden during his speech in Warsaw. /
The US president meets in Poland with two Ukrainian ministers and asks the West to arm itself with “courage” for a “long war”
“Ukraine has inspired the whole world,” US President Joe Biden said on Saturday on the second day of his visit to Poland. During this day he met with the Ukrainian foreign and defense ministers, Dimitro Kuleba and Oleksi Reznikov, to discuss the evolution of the Russian invasion. “We live in an era of Ukrainian centrism, but in mutual struggle with a common enemy,” said the Democrat.
Kuleba and Reznikov obtained, according to the White House, “updated information on the military, diplomatic and humanitarian situation in Ukraine,” in a meeting also attended by their American counterparts, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin. Sitting across from each other at a long white table, both sides discussed the “significant military and humanitarian assistance that the United States provides to Ukraine” as well as “further efforts to help kyiv defend its territory.” Kuleba viewed the meeting with “cautious optimism.”
After the meeting, the Democratic leader made a speech at the Royal Palace in Warsaw in which he called on the West to arm itself with “courage” for a “long war.” “In this battle, we must keep our eyes open: this battle will not be won in days and months. We need to arm ourselves with courage for the long fight that lies ahead,” Biden stressed to almost a thousand people.
He also dedicated a few words to the Russian president. Noting that “I’m not sure they have changed” his strategy in Ukraine, Biden warned Putin that there will be consequences if his troops enter Atlantic Alliance territory. “Don’t even think about moving a single centimeter inside NATO territory.” Meanwhile, he sent the message to the Ukrainians that “we are with you.” The US president also argued that the invasion has become a “strategic failure” for Moscow and specified that the Russian people “are not the enemy”, but rather Putin, who has “strangled democracy” and “cannot remain in the power,” he declared.
The keys
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Joe Biden
“We Live In An Era Of Ukraineocentrism, But In Mutual Struggle With A Common Enemy” -
defensive unit
Washington assures that NATO article 5, which regulates collective security, is “sacred” -
Vladimir Putin
The Democratic president branded his Russian counterpart a “butcher” after visiting a displaced persons camp
Faced with the threat that Russia could represent after its operation in Ukraine, Biden assured his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, that NATO article 5, which states that an offensive against a member is an attack against all its members, has character « sacred” to him. “Count on it, for your freedom and for ours,” he assured at the meeting that both leaders held this Saturday on their second day of visit in Warsaw. Duda, for his part, called for accelerating “weapons acquisition programs” to strengthen their security and recalled that both countries signed contracts for the supply of the Patriot system, as well as the purchase of F-35 combat aircraft and the acquisition of Abrams tanks.
humanitarian crisis
The US president also thanked Poland for its efforts in welcoming refugees by sheltering more than half of the four million who have left the country since the beginning of the invasion. “You are taking on an important responsibility,” he noted. In the afternoon he visited a displaced persons camp to see “first-hand” the humanitarian crisis caused by the Kremlin incursion, which in just over a month has left thousands of Ukrainians dead, including 135 children, according to the kyiv government. .
More than 2.2 million people who fled the conflict have entered Poland since the start of the war, according to border guard figures. The UN, for its part, states that in total there are 3.7 million displaced persons outside the country, of which 1.8 are children.
After seeing for himself the reality that the Ukrainian population lives and suffers, Biden described Putin as a “butcher”. It is not the first time that the Democratic president has described him in this way. He has also branded him a “murderous dictator”, “pure thug” and, for the second time, a “war criminal”. The first time he made it, in the middle of the month, the Kremlin considered such a statement “unacceptable and inexcusable.”
During his first day in Poland, Biden stressed that “the most important thing” that the international community can do at this time is “to keep democratic countries united” in opposing the Russian invasion and “to strive” to mitigate “the devastation.” caused “by a man, who frankly” considers “a war criminal”.
Topics
Vladimir Putin, White House, NATO, United States, kyiv, Moscow, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Warsaw, War in Ukraine