Polish leaders in White House talks trying to release more US funds for Ukraine

US President Joe Biden is hosting Poland’s president and prime minister for White House talks as the leaders look to press Washington to break its impasse over replenishing funds for Ukraine.

Ahead of the visit, Polish President Andrzej Duda called on other members of the Nato alliance to raise their spending on defence to three per cent of their GDP as Russia

puts its own economy on a war footing and pushes forward with its plans to conquer Ukraine.

Poland already spends four per cent of its own economic output on defence, double the current target of two per cent in Nato.

“The war in Ukraine has clearly shown that the United States is and should remain the leader in security issues in Europe and the world,” Mr

Duda said in an address to Poland on Monday.

“However, other Nato countries must also take greater responsibility for the security of the entire alliance and intensively modernise and strengthen their troops.”

In a Washington Post opinion piece to spotlight his call for greater Nato spending, Mr Duda argued that Russia was switching its economy to “war mode,” allocating close to 30 per cent of its annual budget to arm itself.

“This figure and other data coming out of Russia are alarming,” Mr Duda wrote. “Vladimir Putin’s regime poses the biggest threat to global peace since the end of the Cold War.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine launched a wave of long-range drones against targets in Russia on Tuesday, hitting at least two oil facilities.

The attack on eight regions of Russia is the latest display of Kyiv’s expanding drone capacity.

One drone struck and set ablaze an oil refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which is 775 kilometres (480 miles) from the Ukraine border. Another drone was shot down in the Moscow region.