The Day

Biden shores up Western allies as Putin digs in

- By AAMER MADHANI and ZEKE MILLER AP writers Ellen Knickmeyer and Nomaan Merchant in Washington contribute­d to this report.

Warsaw, Poland — President Joe Biden closed out his wartime visit to Europe on Wednesday, working to shore up partnershi­ps with allies on NATO’s perilous eastern flank — even as Russia’s Vladimir Putin was drawing closer to China for help as his invasion of Ukraine neared the one-year mark.

Biden’s meeting with leaders of the Bucharest Nine nations in Warsaw came at the conclusion of a whirlwind, four-day visit to Ukraine and Poland meant to reassure allies that U.S. support in fending off Russia isn’t at risk of waning.

In dramatic counterpoi­nt, Putin on Wednesday played host in Moscow to Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party’s most senior foreign policy official, as U.S. intelligen­ce warned that Beijing is considerin­g supplying arms and ammunition to the worn-down Russian military.

The flexing of alliances was a fresh indication that both sides are digging in for prolonged conflict in Ukraine with the fighting expected to intensify with the arrival of spring.

Biden’s trip had provided yet another moment of telling counterpro­gramming on Tuesday when he delivered a ringing speech on Western unity in Warsaw, a day after he swept into Kyiv unannounce­d for a visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As Biden spoke in Poland, Putin announced that Russia was suspending its participat­ion in the last remaining U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control treaty.

Biden called that departure “a big mistake.” The exit is expected to have an immediate impact on U.S. awareness of Russian nuclear activities. However, the pact — known as New START — was already on life support following Moscow’s cancellati­on late last year of talks that had been intended to salvage an agreement that each side has accused the other of violating.

Biden met Wednesday with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, the nations in the easternmos­t parts of the NATO alliance that came together in response to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. They include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

“You’re the frontlines of our collective defense,” Biden told them. “And you know, better than anyone, what’s at stake in this conflict. Not just for Ukraine, but for the freedom of democracie­s throughout Europe and around the world.”

These countries have worried that Putin could move to take military action against them next if he’s successful in Ukraine. Biden responded to that anxiety by pledging that NATO’s mutual defense pact is “sacred” and that “we will defend literally every inch of NATO.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenber­g, who attended the meeting, pointed to past Russian actions in Georgia and Ukraine and said, “We cannot allow Russia to continue to chip away at European security. We must break the cycle of Russian aggression.”

It was unclear how the U.S. and its allies aimed to do that, other than by continuing to arm Ukraine’s military with the Western and aging Soviet arms that have allowed it retake about half of the territory it lost in the opening days of the war.

 ?? EVAN VUCCI/AP PHOTO ?? President Joe Biden participat­es Wednesday in a meeting with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of nine countries that make up the eastern flank of NATO in Warsaw.
EVAN VUCCI/AP PHOTO President Joe Biden participat­es Wednesday in a meeting with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of nine countries that make up the eastern flank of NATO in Warsaw.

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