‘It’s not stopping’
60 miles from Ukraine, Biden sees refugee crisis in Poland
RZESZOW, POLAND » Just 60 miles from Ukraine, President Joe Biden saluted Poland on Friday for welcoming more than 2 million refugees who have fled Russia’s invasion. Then he met with humanitarian experts on the ground about what will be needed to mitigate the growing suffering.
Biden said he had hoped to get even closer to the border but was prevented because of security concerns. Still, he said he wanted to visit Poland to underscore that the assistance it is providing is of “enormous consequence” as Europe experiences the biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
“It’s not stopping,” Biden said of the devastation in Ukraine. “It’s like something out of a science fiction movie.”
Biden also visited with some of the thousands of U.S. troops who have been sent near Poland’s border to assist with the humanitarian emergency and to bolster the U.S. military presence on the eastern flank of NATO. More than 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled the country since the Feb. 24 invasion, including about 2.2 million to Poland, according to the United Nations.
Within a few days, the number of refugees displaced from Ukraine since last month will exceed the number of Syrians routed from their homes over years of conflict after a 2011 uprising turned into a full-scale war, said Samantha Power, the U.S. Agency for International Development administrator.
The American military commitment in Poland was apparent as soon as Air Force One touched down, rolling past Patriot missile batteries. More hardware, including heavy trucks and other equipment painted with dark green and brown camouflage, was present at the airport. A nearby convention center serves as a base for the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
Polish President Andrzej Duda joined Biden for a briefing with humanitarian experts.
Duda, through an interpreter, thanked Biden for his support. He said the Poles see the Ukrainians they are receiving as their “guests.”
“This is the name we want to apply to them,” Duda said. “We do not want to call them refugees. They are our guests, our brothers, our neighbors from Ukraine, who today are in a very difficult situation.”
Biden’s first stop was with 82nd Airborne troops, at a barber shop and dining facility where he invited himself to sit down and share some pizza. The Americans are serving alongside Polish troops.
With the troops, he shared an anecdote about visiting his late son, Beau Biden, while he was deployed in Baghdad and going by his mother’s maiden name so as not to draw attention to himself. The president jokingly razzed one service member about his standard-issue short haircut and seriously praised the troops, too.
“You are the finest fighting force in the world and that’s not hyperbole,. Biden said.