Joe Biden heads to emergency Nato summit and Poland with new Russia sanctions
President Joe Biden departed the White House on Wednesday morning for talks with Nato and European leaders in Brussels, and plans to issue more sanctions on Russia for its war on Ukraine.
Biden is scheduled to attend an emergency Nato summit, meet G7 leaders and address European Union leaders on Thursday. He is then slated to travel to Warsaw for a bilateral meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday.
Before departing Marine One on Wednesday morning, Biden was tight-lipped about what he would say to European partners.
‘I’m going to say that to their face. I’m going to say – all I have to say, I’m going to say when I get there,’ Biden told reporters.
‘But I’ll be happy to talk to you guys when I get back or – how many – are you coming?’
Asked how concerned he was about Russia using chemical weapons in the war and how high that threat was, Biden said, ‘I think it’s a real threat’.
In a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Wednesday afternoon, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden would announce another package of sanctions on Russian politicians, oligarchs and institutions.
G7 leaders will agree on the sanctions enforcement plans on Thursday and issue a statement, Sullivan said.
Biden’s engagement with Nato will start with a meeting with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ‘to check signals’ and be on the same wavelength for the emergency summit. Biden will participate in the meeting for about three hours, according to Sullivan.
Sullivan added that concerns about Russia using chemical or nuclear weapons are mostly around the ‘deliberate drumbeat of misinformation, propaganda and lies on this subject that has all the markers of a precursor to them actually using these weapons’.
Biden is expected to talk through more military assistance planned for Ukraine.
In Poland, which is a Nato member, Biden will visit American troops and meet with people fronting the humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians who remain in their home country and those who have fled.
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