President Biden will travel to Poland at the end of the month, the White House announced on Friday, just about a year after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president would be visiting Poland from Feb. 20 to Feb. 22. “He will meet with President Duda of Poland to discuss our bilateral cooperation as well as our collective efforts to support Ukraine and bolster NATO’s deterrence,” Jean-Pierre said.
She added that the president would deliver remarks ahead of the one-year mark of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, about the work the U.S. has done to rally the world to support the people of Ukraine as they fight for their democracy. Mr. Biden will also take the opportunity to emphasize that “we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
While he’s abroad, the president will also meet with members of the “Bucharest Nine,” a group of nine NATO countries, to reaffirm the United States’ support for the security of the alliance. Those countries are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
The White House has not said whether Mr. Biden will at some point travel to Ukraine.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says the U.S. is concerned Russian President Vladimir Putin could be using the winter to resupply and regroup in order to renew his assault on Ukraine in the spring.
“All that’s to say, we do expect again that as the weather improves, that fighting will probably get more vicious,” Kirby said.
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