President Biden will travel to Brussels for an extraordinary NATO meeting; later today Ukrainian President Zelensky will address Congress.
Summary
President Joe Biden will travel to Brussels, Belgium next week for an extraordinary NATO meeting. Later today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will deliver a virtual address to the US Congress.
- Biden will attend an extraordinary NATO summit on March 24 and a European Council Summit.
- White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the goal of the trip would be to “assess where we are at this point in the conflict” and maintain the US and Europe’s unified response to the crisis.
- Biden’s announcement came as the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia visited Kyiv by train amid Russian shelling of the city to meet with Zelensky and show support for Ukraine on Tuesday.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will speak virtually to a joint session of the House and Senate later Wednesday. The speech will be livestreamed.
- Zelensky’s address to Congress follows similar virtual appeals to the Canadian Parliament, the UK House of Commons and the EU Parliament.
- The New York Times wrote that the Ukraine War has shifted the Congressional agenda, empowering the center while marginalizing the eco- and anti-defense left and the pro-Putin and non-interventionist voices on the right.
- The Washington Post reported President Biden signed into law a $13.6 billion military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine on Tuesday before Zelensky’s Wednesday address.
- CNN posited that Biden could visit Poland on his European trip and described his visit as “one of the most closely watched visits to Europe by an American president in decades.”
- Jim Geraghty at National Review asked a pertinent question: can Biden say ‘no’ to Zelensky? Geraghty argued that “Members of Congress are not particularly good at choosing the wise but unpopular choice over the wise but popular choice” so Biden “had better be ready to disappoint everyone” if Zelensky asks the US to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
- The Washington Examiner covered the White House’s dismissal of Russian sanctions imposed on twelve US officials including Biden, his son Hunter, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Psaki said, “What I would say is that [it] won’t surprise any of you that none of us are planning tourist trips to Russia, and none of us have bank accounts that we won’t be able to access. So we will forge ahead.”
- Biden’s trip comes on the heels of NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg’s warning, as reported by Fox News, of the risks of an accidental Russian strike in a NATO country and calls for increased air defenses.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
