Biden says U.S. will defend Poland against any attacks by Russia: ‘Your freedom is ours’ – National

U.S. 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 instructed 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 targets to finish the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Though instances are very tough, at present Polish-American relations are flourishing,” Duda stated.

Greater than 3.7 million folks 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 will soak up as many as 100,000 refugees, and Biden instructed Duda that he understood Poland was “taking over a giant duty, nevertheless it needs to be all of NATO’s duty.”

Biden known as the “collective protection” settlement of NATO a “sacred dedication,” and stated the unity of the Western army alliance was of the utmost significance.

“I’m assured that Vladimir Putin was relying on dividing NATO,” Biden stated in regards to the Russian president. “However he hasn’t been in a position to do it. We’ve all stayed collectively.”

With the conflict coming into its second month, European safety is dealing with its most severe take a look at 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 out of any complacency it might 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 essential 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 attended a gathering of American and Ukrainian diplomatic and protection officers for an replace on Ukraine’s army, diplomatic and humanitarian scenario.

Biden additionally visited a stadium in Warsaw the place Ukrainian refugees go to acquire a Polish identification quantity that provides them entry to social providers resembling well being care and faculties. The town of almost 1.8 million folks grew by 17% in a month.

Biden spoke with refugees and Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski. Whereas Poles have to date welcomed Ukrainians, the humanitarian efforts are largely the work of volunteers, and Trzaskowski has warned that it’s not sustainable and that social providers are buckling beneath the pressure.

The stadium was inbuilt 2012, when Poland and Ukraine hosted the European soccer championship, and was meant as an emblem of how far the 2 international locations had come because the Chilly Warfare. Extra just lately, it served as a area hospital for COVID-19 sufferers.

Biden previewed his closing speech throughout appearances Friday in Rzeszow.

“You’re within the midst of a battle between democracies and oligarchs,” he instructed members of the U.S. Military’s 82nd Airborne Division throughout a go to to their momentary 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 essential factor that we are able to do from the outset” to drive Russian President Vladimir Putin to cease the conflict “is maintain the democracies united in our opposition.”

Biden praised the humanitarian effort as being of “such an infinite consequence” given the scope of the disaster, which provides as much as the biggest move of refugees since World Warfare II. He appeared to lament that safety considerations “understandably” will maintain him from visiting Ukraine on this journey.

Duda, who appeared with Biden on Friday, stated the refugees are “friends.”

“We don’t wish to name them refugees. They’re our friends, our brothers, our neighbors from Ukraine, who at present are in a really tough scenario,” he stated.

The U.S. has been sending cash and provides to help the refugee effort. This week, Biden introduced $1 billion in extra assist along with accepting refugees.

The U.S. 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 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.