Joe Biden expected to speak in Warsaw; Vladimir Putin to make major address in Moscow amid events to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion
Joe Biden arrived in Warsaw late on Monday evening where he is set to meet with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, along with other leaders of countries on Nato’s eastern flank.
During a surprise visit to Kyiv ahead of his planned trip to Poland, the US president said:
When (Russian President Vladimir) Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong.
The cost that Ukraine has had to pay is extraordinarily high. Sacrifices have been far too great. … We know that there will be difficult days and weeks and years ahead.”
Joe Biden visited Kyiv on Monday to announce a new package of additional US aid to Ukraine worth $500m (£415m) including artillery ammunition, anti-armour systems, and air surveillance radars. The timing of his visit – before a planned address by Vladimir Putin on Tuesday – was seen as a deliberate rebuke of the Russian president.
The US president arrived in Warsaw late on Monday evening where he is set to meet with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, along with other leaders of countries on Nato’s eastern flank.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he and Biden spoke about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine, even though it wasn’t supplied before”. But no new commitments were detailed.
EU foreign ministers discussed jointly procuring ammunition to provide to Ukraine during a meeting in Brussels. “It is the most urgent issue. If we fail on that, the result of the war is in danger,” the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said before the meeting. Borrell said the EU needs to ensure that Ukraine has enough ammunition to continue its fight against the Russian invasion, regarding the advance payments scheme as a vital medium-term solution, but wants ammunition delivered from national stocks now.
Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation speech on Tuesday will be accompanied by a celebratory concert at the Luzhniki Stadium on the same day. He is then set to convene an extraordinary sessions of the Duma and Federation Council on Wednesday.
China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, is expected to visit Moscow with proposals for a political settlement to the war. Over the weekend, US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned against Beijing providing material support to Moscow’s invasion, prompting China to tell the US to keep out of its relationship with Russia. “We would like a political solution to provide a peaceful and sustainable framework to Europe,” Wang said ahead of his visit during a stop in Hungary.
Zelenskiy also warned that there will be a “world war” if China decides to support Russia in its war on Ukraine. Zelenskiy said Kyiv would like Beijing “to be on our side” in an interview with Die Welt. “If China allies itself with Russia, there will be a world war, and I do think that China is aware of that,” he said.
Russia claimed its forces have taken control of a village near Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city home to the longest-running battle of Moscow’s offensive. The Russian defence ministry said that volunteer fighters had “fully liberated” the settlement of Paraskoviivka with the support of regular forces, including paratroopers and artillery. The statement did not mention Russia’s mercenary group Wagner which claimed to have captured village on Friday.
The head of the Russian mercenary Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has acknowledged a “major problem” with ammunition supplies for his fighters, accusing Russian officials of deliberately denying his fighters sufficient ammunition. In an emotional seven-minute-long audio message published on his official Telegram channel, he said he was required to “apologise and obey” to someone “high up” who he has a “difficult relationship with” in order to secure ammunition.
