President Joe Biden will seek to rally anti-Moscow allies along NATO’s eastern flank in Poland on Tuesday as the Russian invasion of Ukraine rolls on.
The most significant armed conflict in Europe since World War II has already left tens of thousands of people dead as it reaches the 12-month mark. Along the way it has stricken Ukraine’s infrastructure system and damaged the global economy.
AP reports Biden is scheduled to meet with Polish President Andrzej Dud and deliver a “call to arms” address from the gardens of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, where he’s expected to highlight the commitment of the central European country and other allies to Ukraine over the past year.
On Wednesday, he’ll consult with Duda and other leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of the easternmost members of NATO military alliance, according to the report.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan flagged the Royal Castle speech as “vintage Joe Biden” while predicting the Democratic president would lay out the action democracies take in the coming years will have reverberations for years to come.
Biden is set to speak on the day that Russian President Vladimir Putin was delivering his long-delayed state-of-the-nation address, in which he declares “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.”
Sullivan predicted Biden’s address would not be “some kind of head to head” with Putin’s address.
“This is not a rhetorical contest with anyone else,” he said. “This is an affirmative statement of values, a vision for what the world we’re both trying to build and defend should look like.”
In the U.S., a poll published last week by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows support for providing Ukraine with weapons and endless economic assistance is softening.
And earlier this month, 11 House Republicans introduced what they called the “Ukraine fatigue” resolution urging Biden to end military and financial aid to Ukraine, while pushing Ukraine and Russia to come to a peace agreement.
As Biden continues to criss-cross Eastern Europe, his absence is being noted at home.
East Palestine, Ohio, Mayor Trent Conaway stated late Monday that Biden’s Ukraine trip is “the biggest slap in the face” and the president “giving millions of dollars away to people over there, and not to us […] tells you right now he doesn’t care about us.”
Biden is yet to visit East Palestine and witness the devastation caused there by the toxic train accident that has left the community of the small village devastated.
Meanwhile the U.S. has committed about $113 billion in aid to Ukraine since last year, while European allies have committed tens of billions of dollars more and welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees who have fled the conflict.