Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian Foreign and Defence Ministers this Sunday in Poland

US President Joe Biden will meet on Saturday with Ukrainian Foreign and Defense Ministers Dmitro Kuleba and Oleksii Réznikov, respectively, during his visit to Warsaw.

In a brief statement, the White House announced Saturday that Biden planned to “participate in part of a meeting” in the Polish capital between Ukrainian ministers and US Secretaries of State and Defense Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, who accompany the president on his trip.

Biden's office did not elaborate on the meeting, other than stating that it would take place in the morning, before the president carried out the rest of his official agenda in Warsaw.

Biden plans to meet Polish President Andrzej Duda at noon before visiting the PGE Narodowy football stadium, which has been converted into a refugee center to care for some of the more than 2.17 million who have fled Ukraine to Poland since the war began.

In addition to meeting refugees, Biden will be with the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, and with the organizations that are carrying out the humanitarian response, including the anti-hunger organization World Central Kitchen, founded by Spanish chef José Andrés.

Just this week, Biden appointed José Andrés as co-chair of the presidential advisory council on Sport, Fitness and Nutrition.

Before flying back to Washington, Biden will give a speech on Saturday at the Royal Palace in Warsaw at 18:00 (17:00 GMT) to highlight “the united efforts of the free world to support the people of Ukraine,” according to the White House.

“(It is) an important speech in which he will talk about what is at stake right now, the urgency of the challenge ahead (...) and why it is important for the free world to stand together in the face of Russian aggression,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Friday.

During his European tour, which began on Wednesday, Biden also visited the US military near the Ukrainian border and participated in three NATO, G7 and European Union (EU) summits in Brussels focusing on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Biden sat down for pizza on Friday with some members of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Armed Forces, displaced to Poland to reinforce NATO's eastern flank following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We are in the middle of, and I don't want to sound too philosophical, but in the middle of a struggle between democracies and oligarchs,” said the president.

He continued: “The world will not be the same, not because of Ukraine, but it will not be the same in 10 or 15 years in terms of our organizational structures. The question is: Who will prevail? Will our democracy prevail and the values we share? Or will autocracies prevail? And that is really what is at stake. So what they are doing (he told the soldiers) is consistent, really consistent.”

“Thank you very, very much for everything you are doing. You are the best fighting force in the history of the world,” the president also told the soldiers next to the airport of the Polish city of Rzeszów, located about 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

(With information from EFE)

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