After his Monday visit to Kiev, President Joe Biden traveled to Poland by train for a two-day visit and discussion with President Andrzej Duda. In Ukraine, President Zelenskyy told the press that he had “discussed” the issue of long-range weapons with Biden. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced that Ukraine would be getting fighter jets soon, and that it’s only a matter of when. And Sen. Lindsey Graham stated that Biden’s current trip could be the most decisive moment of his Presidency, and he urged that two actions be taken: Start training Ukrainians to fly F-16s; and declare Russia a state sponsor of terror, since that is how Vice President Kamala Harris had described Russia in her address to the Munich Security Conference.
But it was the London Financial Times that presented the broader British policy in an interview with Polish President Duda on the eve of Biden’s visit.
“Poland’s head of state has called on NATO powers to give postwar security guarantees to Ukraine,” the FT wrote, which should consist of a series of bilateral security treaties with the U.S., U.K., and France, which would be the de facto equivalent of joining NATO. “While Ukraine was aware it cannot join NATO now,” the FT explained, “Kiev was expecting a `partnership’ with `some kind of security guarantees,’ Duda said…. Duda also urged Biden to reaffirm `in very strong terms’ during his Warsaw visit that the U.S. stands unreservedly behind NATO’s Article 5, the collective defense clause treating any attack on a member state as an attack against all. The security guarantees Ukraine has sought would be structured differently, effectively binding leading NATO powers such as the U.S., U.K. and France into providing military assistance in the event of a future attack on Ukraine.”
