Joe Biden on Saturday met in Warsaw with two Ukrainian ministers in the first face-to-face talks between the US president and top Kyiv officials since Russia’s invasion began. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces.
The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city centre — opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees since the conflict started. Biden could be seen seated at a long white table between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, an AFP reporter said.
He praised Ukrainians for showing “backbone” against the Russian invasion and compared their resistance to the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in China in 1989. “This is Tiananmen Square squared,” he said.
He also referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a man who, quite frankly, I think is a war criminal”. “And I think we’ll meet the legal definition of that as well,” he said. Biden said he would have liked to see the devastation caused by the conflict “first-hand”.
“They won’t let me, understandably I guess, cross the border,” he said.
Speaking to the troops, he said: “You’re in the midst of a fight between democracies and autocrats. What you’re doing is consequential, really consequential.” Later on Saturday, he is due to meet with Polish leaders, visit a reception centre for refugees and give a major speech on the conflict.