On the second day of his European tour, US President Joe Biden arrived in Poland this Friday. A visit with two main themes: humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees and military assistance to Ukraine.
Joe Biden first went not far from the border where he met American soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division deployed since February and NGOs responsible for humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees. He repeatedly thanked the soldiers he met. ” You are at the center of a battle between democracies and autocrats “, he launched during a short speech.
The US President then attended a meeting on the humanitarian situation in and around Ukraine with Polish President Andrzej Duda, where he again referred to Vladimir Putin as ” war criminal “. The US government, on March 23, had already officially “ established that members of the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Joe Biden finally arrived in the early evening in Warsaw, the capital, where he was greeted by a rally a few hundred meters from his hotel, says our special correspondent in Warsaw, Simon Roze. Composed mainly of Ukrainian refugees, the protesters are calling for a no-fly zone over their country. ” Close the sky “, they resumed in unison.
Daria Kariniuk, who fled kyiv, spoke up several times: We want to go home. For that to happen, we have to win the war. And the only way to win it is to have more weapons. President Biden is in Poland. He is going to talk about refugees. But we don’t want him to talk about refugees. We want him to talk about weaponry. And even more, we don’t want him to talk about weapons. We want him to deliver them. Let him close the sky to Russian bombs. We need tools to do that, we can’t do it with our hands. We have the best army, the best pilots, we just need air defense systems. »
This question and that of a stronger involvement of NATO and the United States in the conflict is a demand present in Poland on the part of Ukrainian refugees, but also of Poles. So far, Joe Biden has refused to do so so as not to become co-belligerent in this conflict. But this position is misunderstood in Poland, which hosts more than two million refugees from its neighboring country.
The American president will have the opportunity to explain himself and answer these questions this Saturday. He will give a “founding” speech, according to the White House, at the Royal Palace in Warsaw.
► To read also: Press review of the Americas – US President Joe Biden in Poland
