US President Joe Biden has ended a two-day visit to Poland by delivering a speech in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Royal Castle in which he began and ended by drawing on the Polish people’s resistance to Soviet-imposed communism as inspiration for Ukraine’s resistance today against Russia.
Biden started by quoting the famous words of Polish Pope John Paul II – “Be not afraid” – which he uttered during his inauguration in 1978. The US president then repeated them again as he finished his address.
“They were words that would change the world,” said Biden, showing “the power of faith, power of resilience, power of the people in the face of a cruel and brutal system of government…helping end Soviet repression in Central and Eastern Europe”.
Biden also cited the importance of Solidarity and its leader, Lech Wałęsa, in bringing down Poland’s communist regime, as well as of Warsaw itself.
“This city holds a sacred place in… humankind’s unending search for freedom,” he declared. “For generations, Warsaw has stood where liberty has been challenged and liberty has prevailed.”
Now, continued the US president, it is “Ukraine and its people in the front line…[of] the perennial struggle for democracy and freedom”. But, as during the Cold War, “this battle will not be won in days or months; we need to steel ourselves for the long fight ahead”.
But in that struggle, “my message to the people of Ukraine is…we stand with you, period”, declared Biden, to applause from the crowd in Warsaw. Among the spectators were Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, and prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki.
Earlier in the day, during a meeting with refugees in Warsaw who are among the more than two million to have fled Ukraine for Poland since Russia’s invasion, Biden described Vladimir Putin as a “butcher”.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” the US president then declared during his speech at the Royal Castle. Later, the White House said that Biden had not been calling for regime change, simply saying that “Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region”, reports CNN.
In his speech, Biden also praised the Polish people for “opening their hearts and their homes” to Ukrainian refugees, who have been welcomed in Poland by a range of support from national and local authorities, NGOs, businesses, religious groups, and millions of individual Poles.
He also sought to reassure NATO allies in the region that, if they were attacked by Russia, the US would respect its “sacred obligation” to defend them. “Don’t even think about moving on one single inch of NATO territory,” he warned Moscow.
At an earlier meeting with his Polish counterpart, Biden had likewise pledged that the US would respect its “sacred” commitment under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. “Your freedom is ours,” he told Duda, echoing a famous Polish motto.
Biden, along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, also today met in Warsaw with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov.
Yesterday, after his arrival in Poland, Biden visited US troops stationed in Poland and, alongside Duda, met with representatives of NGOs who have been supporting refugees.
Main image credit: Slawomir Kaminski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
