Western leaders meet for a series of summits. The US President is traveling to Brussels for this – and then making a detour to the eastern flank of NATO.
US President Joe Biden wants to travel to Poland in view of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The White House announced on Sunday evening (local time) that Biden would initially attend the NATO, EU and G7 summits in Brussels this Thursday as planned. On Friday he will continue to Warsaw. A bilateral meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda is planned there for Saturday. It should be about the humanitarian crisis “triggered by Russia’s unjustified and unfounded war against Ukraine.”
The White House also announced that Biden would be discussing this Monday in a video conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The subject of the switch at 11:00 a.m. (local time/4:00 p.m. CET) is the coordinated response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Biden’s departure for Brussels is scheduled for Wednesday.
The heads of state and government of the leading democratic economic powers will meet in Brussels on Thursday for a G7 summit. The summit is embedded in two other summits in Brussels on the same day: First the NATO heads of state and government will meet. It will also be about the Ukraine war. An EU summit will take place in the afternoon. Biden is attending all three summits. It is his third trip to Europe since taking office in January 2021.
More than two million refugees in Poland
According to the UN, more than two million refugees from the neighboring country have arrived in Poland, a NATO partner country, since the start of the war in Ukraine. There is currently no official information on how many of the war refugees stayed in Poland and how many have already traveled on to other EU countries. Ukraine – the largest country in Europe by area – had a population of more than 44 million before the Russian attack began. Poland and Ukraine are connected by a national border that is more than 500 kilometers long.
At the beginning of March, US Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Poland. At the time, President Duda had appealed to the US government to take in refugees from the country for the duration of the war in Ukraine. During her visit to Poland, Harris also met with refugees and then traveled on to Romania.
Poland wanted to hand over fighter jets to the USA
Most recently, a proposal by Poland had caused irritation in the US government. Warsaw wanted to hand over MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine via a US base in Germany. The US refused. Such a measure could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO forces and the Russian military, which could lead to an escalation of the war, the reasoning said.
At the same time, Biden repeatedly emphasizes that he will defend every inch of NATO territory. Poland borders both Ukraine and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
