Harris stepping on world stage amid tensions over Ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris will face her highest-stakes foreign policy assignment yet this weekend in Germany, where she will try to keep European allies unified amid growing concern over the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She will attend the annual Munich Security Conference as President Joe Biden and other Western leaders warn that the threat of an invasion remains high despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's statements that he is committed to further talks.
The Kremlin has made unverified claims that some of the estimated 150,000 Russian forces encircling Ukraine have been pulled back to their garrisons. White House officials dispute that, saying intelligence shows Russia has added 7,000 additional troops near Ukraine in recent days and has stepped up preparations for potential false flag operations that could be used as a pretext to start a war.
Harris is scheduled to meet Friday with NATO SecretaryGeneral Jens Stoltenberg and hold a multilateral meeting with the leaders of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia on the margins of the Munich conference. She's scheduled to deliver a major address Saturday on the administration's efforts to stop Russian aggression. After the speech, she's expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Harris would "convey to the rest of the world again our ironclad commitment to our NATO allies, our commitment to defending the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, and our commitment to putting in place severe economic consequences should Russia invade."
The Munich gathering has been used in recent years by both U.S. and Russian leaders to deliver messages to a who's who of trans-Atlantic leaders.
Then-Vice President Mike Pence in 2019 made a fullthroated case for President Donald Trump's "America First" worldview, receiving a tepid response from the mostly European crowd. Hours later, Biden, then a private citizen and not yet a 2020 presidential candidate, assured European allies that "this too shall pass" and "America will be back."
In 2007, Putin used his own Munich appearance to deliver a broadside against NATO, accusing the alliance of putting "its frontline forces on our borders." At last year's conference, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, new president Biden declared "America's back" in an address that touched on economic and security concerns driven by adversaries Russia and China.