President Joe Biden is ready to satisfy leaders from NATO’s japanese flank nowadays in Warsaw, and reassure them that his management is keenly conscious about the looming threats and different affects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Wednesday’s assembly comes on the finish of Biden’s whirlwind four-day talk over with to Poland and Ukraine, and brings in combination the Bucharest Nine, a number of international locations at the maximum japanese portions of the NATO alliance that shaped in keeping with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
As the battle in Ukraine drags on, the Bucharest Nine international locations’ anxieties have remained heightened. Many concern Putin may just transfer to take army motion in opposition to them subsequent if he’s a success in Ukraine. The alliance contains Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
“When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages,” Biden said in an address from the foot of Warsaw’s Royal Castle on Tuesday to mark the somber milestone of the year-old Russian invasion.
“Europe used to be being examined. America used to be being examined. NATO used to be being examined. All democracies have been being examined.”
Biden met Tuesday in Warsaw with Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who last week claimed Moscow was behind a plot to overthrow her country’s government using external saboteurs.
Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania and one of Europe’s poorest countries, the Eastern European nation has had historic ties to Russia but wants to join the 27-nation European Union. Biden in his remarks endorsed Moldova’s bid to join the EU
“I’m proud to stand with you and the freedom-loving people of Moldova,” Biden said of Sandu and her country in his Tuesday address.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people, has sought to forge closer ties with its Western partners. Last June, it was granted EU candidate status, the same day as Ukraine.
