In light of the rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, and following the strongly worded speech of the Russian President, US President Joe Biden intends to meet the leaders of Eastern Europe in Warsaw on Wednesday to reassure them and confirm Washington's support for them.
US President Joe Biden will meet Wednesday in Warsaw with nine Eastern and Central European leaders, in the presence of the Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), to affirm Washington's "firm" support for them regarding Moscow, which is consolidating its strategic partnership with Beijing.
The visit of Chinese Communist Party Foreign Affairs Commissioner Wang Yi to Moscow on Wednesday comes after Washington and NATO expressed concern that China is preparing to supply arms to Russia to continue its war in Ukraine.
And the White House said in a statement that Biden "will meet in Warsaw with the leaders of Bucharest 9 (B9), a group of NATO members located on its eastern wing, in the presence of NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, to reaffirm the firm support of the United States for the security of the alliance."
The meeting, which is taking place in the presidential palace in Warsaw, aims to reassure these nine countries, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, all of which are former Soviet republics or members of the Warsaw Pact and are located on the eastern wing of NATO.
The meeting comes after a strongly worded statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he pledged to continue the attack he launched nearly a year ago on Ukraine in a "systematic manner" and announced Russia's suspension of the Russian-US "New START" treaty on nuclear disarmament, recalling the darkest stages of the Cold War.
Putin stressed that the West wants to "inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, that is, to eliminate us completely," blaming Washington and its European allies for "the responsibility for fueling the Ukrainian conflict and (falling) its victims."
On the same day, Biden responded in a speech in Warsaw that "the West is not conspiring to attack Russia, as Putin said," and "millions of Russian citizens only want to live in peace with their neighbors, not the enemy."
NATO will not be divided.
But Joe Biden confirmed, the day after a surprise visit to Kiev on Monday, during which he once again promised to supply Ukraine with weapons, that the United States' support for Ukraine "will not weaken."
He added, "Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia never () Ukraine remains free," stressing "America's iron will."
"NATO will not be divided and we will not get tired," Badin said.
Washington this week accused China of seeking to supply weapons to Russia to support its offensive in Ukraine, which Beijing denies.
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell declared that China's handover of weapons to Moscow is a "red line" for the European Union. He stressed that the member states of the bloc will rely on their stocks to accelerate the supply of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.
Suspense over a Chinese peace plan
In Moscow, Putin received the Chinese chief foreign affairs official, Wang Yi, on Wednesday in the Kremlin, after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Vladimir Putin saw that Russian-Chinese relations "contribute to the stability of the international situation" in light of the state of anticipation for a Chinese peace plan for Ukraine that is supposed to be announced this week.
China promised to publish its proposal for a "political solution" this week on the first anniversary of Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
For his part, Wang Yi expressed Beijing's desire to "strengthen the strategic partnership and comprehensive cooperation" with Moscow, according to his statements translated into Russian.
Vladimir Putin also announced on Wednesday that Russia is fighting in Ukraine for its "historic lands" in front of thousands of Russians who gathered in Moscow for a big concert.
But Putin's speech had a great impact, especially since he announced the suspension of Moscow's participation in the latest arms control treaty between the two largest nuclear states in the world, Russia and the United States, and threatened to conduct new nuclear tests if Washington did so first.
The Russian Foreign Ministry softened the announcement, confirming in a statement: "Russia intends to adhere to a responsible approach and will continue to strictly comply with the quantitative restrictions on strategic offensive weapons provided for in the Treaty."
This text, signed in 2010, is the last bilateral agreement of its kind that binds the two powers. At the beginning of August, Russia announced the suspension of the planned US inspections at its military sites within the framework of the agreement, stressing that this step came in response to the American obstacles to Russian inspections in the United States.
Putin called on Russian forces to be "in a state of readiness to conduct nuclear weapons tests" if the United States did so first.
For his part, the head of the Russian Wagner military group urged the Russians on Wednesday to put pressure on the army to supply its men with ammunition, an unprecedented call that illustrates the extent of tension between the mercenaries and the Russian General Staff.
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