The pizza will be remembered. As a small symbol in the new conflict between East and West. When US President Joe Biden visited US soldiers in Rzeszow, Poland, on Friday, he sat down with servicemen from the 82nd Airborne Division. Together they ate pizza out of cardboard boxes.
He was here “to say thank you,” the president said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for his service.” It was not the only highly symbolic action during his trip.
It wasn’t long before someone on the internet combined a photo of the current meeting with a well-known shot in the Kremlin from the first week of the war for comment. The oldest shows President Vladimir Putin with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military leader Valery Gerasimov sitting side by side, far apart, at a ridiculously long table.
The message is clear: a photo shows the Russian dictator, who keeps his confidants at a distance and is increasingly isolated. The others – although this description has suffered in recent years – leaders of the free world, very close to their faithful and their allies.
“Sacred Obligation”
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Showing cohesion was a major goal of Biden’s trip to Europe. He was not the only one who was close to the soldiers that the United States had transferred from North Carolina to Poland shortly before the start of the war. After meetings with leaders of NATO, the EU and the G7 countries in Brussels, Biden traveled to Poland, neighboring Ukraine, on Friday. From Rzeszow, in southeastern Poland, it is only about 90 kilometers to the border.
On the second day of his visit to Poland, Biden met with President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw. Poland hopes that the reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank by US troops will last. In light of growing security concerns in Poland and other Eastern European countries, the US president initially assured his counterpart of more fundamental support: Biden called Article 5 of the NATO treaty on the event of the alliance as a “sacred obligation” for his country.
“You can trust it,” he promised, picking up a slogan from the time of Poland’s struggle against Russian occupiers in the 19th century: “For our freedom and yours.” separate the east flank from the west. But there will be no such division.
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“Democracy is strangling”
In the evening, Biden delivered a speech outside the royal palace. The story was already expected in advance. In a combative speech, Biden swore the world into a long conflict over the future international order. It is a “great battle between democracy and autocracy, between freedom and oppression, between an order based on rules and one governed by brute force,” he said.
“Now we must commit to maintaining power for this fight. We must stand together, today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and for years and decades to come.” Russia has already “strangled democracy” and is trying to do the same elsewhere, Biden said.
The war in Ukraine is a “strategic mistake” of Moscow. The Russian people “are not our enemy,” said the US president. Instead, the Russians should hold Putin responsible for the West’s harsh economic sanctions.
The president of the United States had previously spoken with the refugees at the National Stadium. The stadium was built for the 2012 European Football Championship, which Poland hosted with Ukraine. Even then there was hope in Poland that this joint organization of a sporting event could bring openness and progress to Ukraine, and a turn to the West.
More about the Ukrainian war on Tagesspiegel Plus:
“He’s a butcher”
Surprisingly, Biden also met in Warsaw with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov. It was the first face-to-face meeting of the US president with high-ranking government officials in kyiv since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Despite continued fighting, Kuleba and Reznikov traveled to Poland, where they also met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.
During his speech, Biden called on the people of Ukraine: “We are with you”, alluding to the words of the Polish Pope John Paul II, he declared: “Do not be afraid”. another future let us have a better future based on democracy and principle, hope and light.”
Biden found other meaningful words for the Kremlin ruler when asked by a reporter what he thought of Putin that afternoon. “He is a butcher,” Biden said. with dpa, afp
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