Biden assures Duda of NATO protection during Poland visit March 26, 2022

SMA NEWS – WARSAW

On his final day in Europe, President Joe Biden on Saturday sought to reassure Poland that the US would defend it against any attacks by Russia. He also acknowledged that the NATO ally bore the burden of the refugee crisis from the war in neighboring Ukraine.

“Your freedom is ours,” Biden told Poland’s President Andrzej Duda echoing one of Poland’s unofficial mottos. At the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, the two leaders spoke of their mutual respect and shared goals to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Although times are very difficult, today Polish-American relations are flourishing,” Duda said. More than 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine since the war began, with 2 million going to Poland.

Earlier this week, the US announced it would take in as many as 100,000 refugees. Biden told Duda that he understood Poland was “taking on a big responsibility, but it should be all of NATO’s responsibility.”

Biden called the “collective defense” agreement of NATO a “sacred commitment” and said the unity of the Western military alliance was of the utmost importance.

“I’m confident that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin was counting on dividing NATO,” Biden said about the Russian president. “But he hasn’t been able to do it. We’ve all stayed together.”

With the war entering its second month, European security is facing its most serious test since World War II.

Western leaders have spent the past week consulting over contingency plans in case the conflict spreads. The invasion has shaken NATO from any complacency it might have felt and cast a dark shadow over Europe.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said a speech that Biden was scheduled to give later Saturday in Poland’s capital would outline the “urgency of the challenge that lies ahead” and “what the conflict in Ukraine means for the world, and why it is so important that the free world stay in unity and resolve in the face of Russian aggression.”

Biden’s remarks will end a four-day trip that included a series of summits in Brussels. In addition to the meeting with Duda, he stopped by a meeting of US and Ukrainian diplomatic and defense officials for an update on Ukraine’s military, diplomatic and humanitarian situation.