Biden rallies support for Ukraine’s efforts in a speech from Warsaw

Warsaw – President Joe Biden He will give what he intends to be a keynote speech here on Saturday about the dangers the world faces and the road ahead. Ukraine In a city where the tragedy of the Russian war appears in real time.

Before giving the speech, Biden met with Ukrainian refugees and aid workers at a sports stadium that once hosted rock concerts and football matches. It now provides temporary shelter to refugees, helping them register for school and work.

In the stadium, a group of women and refugee children gathered around Biden to tell him their experiences, asked him to pray for their male relatives in Ukraine, and thanked him for the support of the United States. Biden hugged a woman with tears in her eyes and snapped a little girl dressed in pink winter clothes for a photo with her. The girl’s mother told Biden how her daughter and child had been sheltering in a basement before arriving in Poland.

“I’ve always been amazed at the depth and strength of the human enemy, I mean it honestly,” Biden said after meeting refugees. “They are an amazing group of people.”

When asked by a reporter about reports of a change in Russian strategy, Biden appeared skeptical. “I’m not sure about that,” he said. A Russian general said on Friday that troops are turning away from their offensive on Ukraine and refocusing on the “complete liberation” of the country’s breakaway region of Donbas.

When asked about his opinion of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, Biden was candid. “He’s a butcher,” Biden said.

The refugee crisis was present throughout Biden’s two days in Poland. As Biden’s motorcade headed to a meeting with the Polish president on Saturday, it passed through Warsaw train station as a steady stream of refugees just arriving in the country lined up for food and basic supplies like toilet paper, asking for help with housing and transportation.

While Poland has welcomed refugees with open arms, and signs of support for Ukraine have emerged covering the city, Polish officials, including the Mayor of Warsaw, with whom Biden will meet on Saturday, have said they are being pushed to the brink in a bid to help the more than 2 million refugees who have flooded into the country within weeks.

“We recognize that Poland bears a huge responsibility, and I don’t think it should be just Poland,” Biden told President Andrzej Duda during Saturday’s meeting. “It should be the whole world. The responsibility of all nations.”

Biden also offered fervent reassurances that if Russia attacked Poland, the United States would defend itself as part of its commitment under NATO.

Biden’s speech will culminate with three days in Europe, where he conducted what could be some of the Most subsequent meetings his presidency with world leaders, seeking to solidify their unity behind an ongoing pressure campaign against Russia.

The White House said it hoped Biden’s speech would help unite support for the Ukrainian people, hold Russia accountable, and frame the conflict as a larger fight for democracy.

“He will talk about the dangers of this moment, the urgency of the challenge that lies ahead, what the conflict in Ukraine means for the world and why it is so important for the free world to maintain unity and resolve in the face of Russian aggression,” said Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.

As the war entered its second month, White House officials acknowledged that they were preparing for what would be an increasingly long and brutal conflict, and were aiming to use Biden’s meeting and rhetoric to lay the foundation for the way forward.

“This can go on for some time, and to maintain this unity as costs go up, as tragedy strikes, that’s hard work,” Sullivan said. “And the president wanted to gather everyone to say, ‘We have to do this work.'”

The United States announced a series of steps this week to try to escalate pressure on Russia and help Ukraine, including additional sanctions on more than 400 Russian and Russian entities, $1 billion in humanitarian aid, plans to take in 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, and the force’s mission to reduce European dependence on natural gas. Russian.

But Biden acknowledged before leaving Brussels that his actions would do little to deter Putin in the short term. Instead, the president said he hopes that US and European sanctions against Russia, if maintained and enforced, will eventually pressure Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

“Sanctions never deter,” Biden said. “The continuation of the sanctions, the growing pain and the demonstration – why I asked for the NATO meeting today – is to make sure that, after a month, we will maintain what we are doing – not just for the next month, or the next month, but for the remainder of this whole year. That is what will stop it” .