U.S. President Joe Biden met in Warsaw on March 26 with two Ukrainian ministers — his first face-to-face meeting with top Kyiv officials since the start of Russia’s unprovoked invasion — as he visited Poland to show support for the NATO alliance’s eastern flank.
On the front line, a senior Ukrainian official announced an agreement to open 10 evacuation corridors from the besieged port of Mariupol, where fierce fighting continued, while Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reversed a decision to introduce a long curfew in the capital as fighting continued around the city and in other flash points.
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A regional official said Russian forces have taken control of a town where workers at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant live and broke a civilian protest by firing in the air.
Biden dropped in on a meeting between Ukrainian the Ukraine foreign and defense ministers, Dmytro Kuleba and Oleksiy Reznikov, and the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The United States voiced “unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
Kuleba told reporters that Ukraine had received additional security pledges from Washington on developing defense cooperation.
“President Biden said what is happening in Ukraine will change the history of the 21st century, and we will work together to ensure that this change is in our favor, in Ukraine’s favor, in the favor of the democratic world,” Kuleba told Ukrainian national television after the meeting,
Biden also met with Polish President Andrzej Duda and is to end his European trip on March 26 with a major speech in Warsaw.
Biden told Duda at the start of the talks that NATO’s Article 5 is a “sacred” commitment for the United States, referring to the alliance’s mutual-defense clause, which requires all members to come to the aid of any other member under attack.
Biden will argue in his address that the “free world” opposes Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and that there is unity among major economies on the need to stop Vladimir Putin, the White House said.
His appearance at Warsaw’s Royal Castle is scheduled for the late afternoon between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. local time, the U.S. embassy said.
Biden held three days of emergency meetings with allies of the Group of Seven, the European Council, and NATO,. He also paid a visit to U.S. troops in Poland.
National-security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden’s speech will cover the “context and history of this conflict and where he sees it going from here” before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington.
Poland is host to thousands of U.S. troops as part of a NATO battlegroup and has taken in more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Pavlyuk said the Russians also kidnapped the city’s mayor, but some media reported later in the day that the mayor was released swiftly. Neither claim could be verified independently.
The governor said that residents of Slavutych took to the streets with Ukrainian flags to protest the Russian invasion.
“The Russians opened fire into the air. They threw flash-bang grenades into the crowd. But the residents did not disperse, on the contrary, more of them showed up,” Pavlyuk said.
Battle lines near Kyiv have been frozen for weeks with two main Russian armored columns stuck northwest and east of the city. A long curfew announced earlier on March 26 and meant to last until March 28 was later canceled by Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“New information from the military command: the Kyiv curfew will not enter into force tomorrow,” Klitschko announced on Telegram.
The usual overnight curfew from 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. on March 27 will hold but people will “be able to freely move around Kyiv on Sunday during the day,” he added.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said an agreement had been reached to set up 10 humanitarian corridors on March 26 to evacuate civilians from front line hotspots in the besieged city of Mariupol, where more than 100,000 people still need to be evacuated from.
Vereshchuk said civilians trying to leave Mariupol would have to travel by private cars as Russian forces were not letting buses through their checkpoints. The information could not be independently confirmed.
Mariupol mayor, Vadym Boichenko said the situation in the city remained critical, with street fighting taking place in its center.
Footage from Mariupol, home to 400,000 people before the war, showed destroyed buildings and burned-out vehicles. Residents have buried victims in makeshift graves as the ground thaws.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a surprise video appearance on March 26 at Qatar’s Doha Forum, calling on the energy-rich nations to boost their output to prevent Moscow’s use of energy exports as a lever in relations with countries dependent on oil and gas imports.
“I ask you to increase the output of energy to ensure that everyone in Russia understands that no one can use energy as a weapon to blackmail the world,” Zelenskiy said.
In a video address late March 25, Zelenskiy said his troops’ resistance had dealt Russia “powerful blows” and reiterated his call for urgent peace negotiations.
“Our defenders are leading the Russian leadership to a simple and logical idea: We must talk, talk meaningfully, urgently and fairly,” Zelenskiy said.
Kuleba said on Twitter that there had not yet been a consensus in peace negotiations.
“Ukraine’s position is clear: cease-fire, security guarantees, no compromises on territorial integrity. But Russia sticks to ultimatums,” he said.
He added that Ukraine needs more sanctions and more military aid “to stimulate a more constructive approach.”
After a month of fighting, Russia has yet to take a major city in Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces have recaptured some territory in pitched battles just outside of Kyiv.
