Biden speaks in Poland about Russia’s war in Ukraine, days before one-year anniversary of invasion

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is speaking in Warsaw, Poland, on Tuesday to mark the coming one-year mark since Russia invaded Ukraine, putting the war in the broader context of a struggle between authoritarianism and democracy.

Biden’s remarks follow a surprise 23-hour visit to Ukraine’s war-weary capital on Monday. Under extraordinary secrecy, Biden traveled by plane, then by train for 10 hours overnight to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in solidarity with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Tuesday’s speech will strike a similar tone to others Biden has made, including one he gave in Warsaw nearly a year ago. Since his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden has posited himself as a champion of democracy, arguing the U.S. and world is at a crossroads.

“This is the largest land war in Europe in three-quarters of a century and you’re succeeding against all and every expectation except your own. We have every confidence that you’re going to continue to prevail,” Biden said in Kyiv.

“One year later, Kyiv stands and Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you,” Biden added.

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters in a call ahead of the speech that Biden will say democracies and democratic coalitions like NATO have only grown stronger in the last year.

The remarks look to further highlight U.S. commitment to the war-weary country, which aims to repel a renewed Russian assault that began shortly before the one-year anniversary of the conflict. Biden, who flew aboard a militarized Boeing 757 in the pre-dawn hours on Sunday, arrived in Kyiv some 20 hours later to meet Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska.

“It’s important to him to show up, even when it’s hard and he directed his team to make it happen, no matter how challenging the logistics,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters of Biden’s trip.

“This was a risk that Joe Biden wanted to take,” Bedingfield added.

Sullivan called the visit “historic” and “unprecedented in modern times.” He said the Kremlin had advance notice that Biden would travel to Kyiv.

While in Kyiv, the U.S. president announced a new weapons package for Ukraine worth about $500 million. The Pentagon said the aid will come directly from its arsenals, and will include additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, along with Javelins, tactical vehicles and anti-armor rockets.

The latest military aid package, the 32nd such installment, brings U.S. military aid commitment to nearly $30 billion since Moscow invaded Ukraine last February. To date, the U.S. has contributed the lion’s share of Western weapons to Ukraine and deployed hundreds of thousands of American servicemembers to NATO-member countries to bolster defenses.

In addition, the 30-member-strong group has consistently warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that an attack on one NATO member state will be viewed as an attack on all, triggering the group’s cornerstone Article 5. Ukraine has sought membership in the world’s most powerful military alliance since 2002 and is bordered by four NATO allies: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. 

Biden’s speech also comes hours after Putin spoke in front of a joint session of the country’s parliament. He framed the war sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a fight against the West.

Putin also announced Russia would suspend its participation in the New START Treaty, the sole remaining major nuclear agreement between Russia and the U.S.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbor, the war has claimed the lives of more than 8,000 civilians and led to nearly 13,300 injuries, according to U.N. estimates.

“Our data is only the tip of the iceberg,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement Tuesday releasing the figures.

“The toll on civilians is unbearable. Amid electricity and water shortages during the cold winter months, nearly 18 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Some 14 million people have been displaced from their homes,” Turk added.

Turk said that about 90% of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area. He added that the actual figures are likely substantially higher because armed conflict can delay fatality reports.

The U.S. and international organizations have also outlined widespread allegations of war crimes committed by Russia in the last year. Over the weekend, Vice President Kamala Harris said the U.S. has determined Russian forces have committed “crimes against humanity” in Ukraine.

“Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population — gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation,” Harris said in remarks before the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.

“We have examined the evidence. We know the legal standards. And there is no doubt. These are crimes against humanity,” Harris said, adding that those responsible and those complicit “will be held to account.”

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said that regional authorities have logged more than 65,000 Russian war crimes since Moscow invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago.

Kostin said his teams have also documented more than 14,000 Ukrainian children forced into adoption in Russia.

“This is a direct policy aimed at demographic change by cutting out Ukrainian identity,” Kostin told an audience at Georgetown Law School in Washington.

“These actions are characteristics of the crime of genocide,” he added.

Russia has repeatedly denied its troops have committed war crimes or deliberately targeted civilians in attacks.

Last year, the Biden administration said it suspected that between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, had been detained and deported from their homes to Russia. At the time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the conduct may breach international humanitarian agreements and constitute war crimes.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions define international legal standards and protections for humanitarian treatment during wartime and explicitly prohibit mass forced transfers of civilians.

Blinken accused Moscow of ordering the “disappearance” of thousands of Ukrainian civilians who do not pass the dehumanizing “filtration” process of the deportation procedure.

The filtration camps, which have been previously described as large makeshift tents, are initial reception areas where deported Ukrainians are photographed, fingerprinted, stripped, forced to turn over their mobile phones, passwords as well as identification, and then interrogated and sometimes tortured by Russian authorities.

Read more: UN report details horrifying Ukrainian accounts of rape, torture and executions by Russian troops

Blinken also outlined at the time that there was “mounting” evidence of Russian forces deliberately separating Ukrainian children from their parents, abducting children from orphanages, confiscating Ukrainian passports and issuing Russian passports for what is an “apparent effort to change the demographic makeup of parts of Ukraine.”

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.