United States President Joe Biden this Wednesday wanted to send a message of calm to NATO members in Eastern Europe who are suspicious of a geographically close Moscow and concerned about the war in Ukraine. At a meeting with the leaders of nine countries in the region in Warsaw, one of the events planned to commemorate the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the neighboring state, Biden promised: “We will defend every inch of the alliance’s territory.”
After Biden assured in a speech in Warsaw the day before that “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia,” Biden attended a meeting in the Polish capital this Wednesday with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and NATO leaders part group known as Bucharest-9 or The Bucharest Nine. These nations – Poland, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary – tend to be among the most ardent supporters of strong military support for Ukraine and calling for toughness on Russia. Officials from these governments have requested that more equipment be shipped to Kiev, including air defense systems.
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“Article 5 [que compromete a todos los países de la OTAN a acudir en auxilio de cualquier miembro que haya sido atacado] It’s sacred,” Biden said. “They are at the forefront of our collective defense.”
For his part, Polish President Andrzej Duda, with whom Biden met the day before, said that the Russian attack on Ukraine had changed the security situation in Europe. Biden has agreed: “Things have changed. Now we have to see how to restore them to their original state.”
The leaders of countries on NATO’s eastern flank and Biden, according to the US President, tried to analyze ways to “keep the Alliance strong and strengthen its deterrent capacity against possible aggression” at their meeting, according to the US President. They also intended to analyze next steps to support Ukraine in the war and to set a common position for the NATO summit in Vilnius, which is scheduled to take place next July.
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The Lithuanian Presidency’s foreign policy adviser, Asta Skaisgiryte, said before the meeting on his country’s radio that his government would ask Biden for “greater engagement by the United States in Europe, on the eastern flank and more aid to Ukraine”. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala stressed that “the Ukrainians are fighting with the utmost courage” but “they cannot do it without our help, nor without the help of big and powerful countries that have the means and ability to do it”. In his speech, Stoltenberg, for his part, assured that the alliance must “maintain and intensify” support for Ukraine. “We have to give Ukraine what it needs to win,” he added.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is closer to Moscow, did not attend the meeting; his country was represented by President Katalin Novak.
The meeting came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inflammatory State of the Union address, in which he announced the suspension of his country’s participation in the New Start nuclear arms control treaty signed with the US in 2010 and accused the West of wanting to “destroy” Russia. . The Kremlin tenant also promised to “systematically” fulfill the goals of the offensive in Ukraine he ordered on February 24 last year.
Beijing under the magnifying glass of Washington
Asked by journalists accompanying him on his tour – which began Monday with a surprise visit to Kiev – Biden detailed Russia’s withdrawal from that pact, the last remaining between Washington and Moscow over control of their respective nuclear arsenals in power is.
Almost at the same time as the meeting in Warsaw, Putin met in Moscow with the main person responsible for China’s foreign policy, national security adviser Wang Yi. The Russian president has highlighted the importance of relations between the two governments to “stabilize the international situation” in a conversation that the Biden administration will examine with a magnifying glass. The White House says in recent weeks it has begun to see “signs” that Beijing may start selling arms to its strategic partner, which it has not done in the past 12 months of the conflict.
The meeting with the Eastern European countries will also take place on the eve of the extraordinary session of the UN Security Council to discuss the situation in Ukraine. Speaking in the gardens of the former royal palace in the Polish capital on Tuesday, Biden threatened new sanctions to punish Russia, whose economy shrank by up to 4.5 percent last year as a result of international measures, according to the World Bank, according to data from the World Bank .
The meeting with the Bucharest Nine culminates in a series of intense diplomatic contacts by US leaders over the past few days to express their “unwavering” and “enduring” support for Ukraine and to motivate other allies to head to Kiev in the face of possible temptations after a meeting to falter, to continue to support war years. Washington also wants to emphasize NATO’s unity, “stronger than ever,” Biden said on Tuesday after a bilateral meeting with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.
In addition to Biden’s tour, US Vice President Kamala Harris accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine in her speech at the Munich Security Conference last weekend. The German city was also the scene of a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, in which he warned Beijing of the “impact and consequences of China providing material support to Russia or helping Russia to systematically circumvent sanctions”.
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