WARSAW, Poland (AP) – President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a “huge mistake” in suspending his country’s participation in the last remaining US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty. The US President was in Poland to reassure NATO allies on the eastern flank that the US will stand by them amid the grueling Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In his first comments since Putin’s announcement on Tuesday, Biden condemned Russia’s decision to withdraw from the treaty known as New START. The move is expected to have an immediate impact on US visibility of Russia’s nuclear activities, but the pact was already alive after Moscow late last year cut short talks aimed at salvaging an agreement both sides had declared violating the others had accused.
“That’s a big mistake,” Biden said.
The president’s comments came as he capped a turbulent four-day visit to Poland and Ukraine with talks with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a cluster of nations in the easternmost parts of the NATO alliance that had banded together in response to Putin’s 2014 annexation of the Crimea from Ukraine. He left Poland on Wednesday night to return to Washington ahead of the anniversary of the outbreak of war on Friday.
Concerns among the Bucharest Nine have continued to mount as the Ukraine war drags on, and many fear that if Putin is successful in Ukraine, military action may next be taken against them. The Alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
“You are the front line of our collective defense,” Biden told the group on Wednesday. “And you know better than anyone what is at stake in this conflict? Not just for Ukraine, but for the freedom of democracies across Europe and around the world.”
He vowed that the NATO Defense Pact was “sacred” and that “we will defend literally every inch of NATO.”
A day earlier, at the foot of Warsaw’s Royal Castle to mark the somber milestone of the year-long Russian invasion, Biden warned that if left unchecked, Russian aggression will not stop at Ukraine’s borders. “The appetite of the autocrat cannot be appeased,” he said. “They must be fought.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the right-wing populist leader who argued last week that the European Union was partly to blame for prolonging Russia’s war in Ukraine, has rejected sanctions on Moscow and the arming of Kiev. Orban skipped the meeting with Biden, and President Katalin Novák attended in his place.
Nonetheless, Klaus Iohannis, the President of Romania, insisted that “the B9 is stronger than ever”.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who attended the meeting, said: “We don’t know when the war will end, but when it does end we need to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Referring to previous Russian actions in Georgia and Ukraine, he added: “We cannot allow Russia to continue to interfere with European security. We must break the cycle of Russian aggression.”
Biden met in Warsaw on Tuesday with Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who last week claimed Moscow was behind a conspiracy to overthrow her country’s government using outside saboteurs.
Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and one of Europe’s poorest countries, the eastern European nation has historic ties to Russia but wants to join the 27-nation European Union. In his remarks, Biden supported Moldova’s application to join the EU.
“I am proud to stand by you and the freedom-loving people of Moldova,” Biden said of Sandu and her country in his Tuesday address.
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought to forge closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was granted EU candidate status on the same day as Ukraine.
Sandu spoke last week about a Russian plot “to overthrow the constitutional order”. She spoke out after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country had intercepted Russian intelligence plans to destroy Moldova. These claims were later confirmed by Moldovan intelligence officials.
Biden’s speech on the Ukraine war came a day after his surprise visit to Kiev, a grand gesture of solidarity with Ukraine. The speech was partly a reaffirmation of Europe’s role in helping Ukraine repel Russia’s ongoing invasion and partly a stark warning to Putin that the US will not allow Moscow to defeat Ukraine.
The White House lauded several eastern flank countries, including Lithuania, Poland and Romania, over the past year for stepping up efforts to provide arms and economic aid to Ukraine and to take in refugees.
Biden has paid particular attention to Poland’s efforts. The country is home to about 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees and has pledged $3.8 billion in military and economic aid to Kiev.
“The truth is, the United States needs Poland and NATO needs the United States as much as NATO needs it,” Biden said in talks with Polish President Andrzej Duda.