With the Ukraine war on its doorstep, Poland has emerged as Europe’s pre-eminent hawk on the conflict with Russia, as Warsaw plays a central role in stiffening Western resolve toward Moscow through public pressure and backchannel negotiations.
Poland’s stance at the forefront of Western support for Ukraine will come under the spotlight when President Biden visits Warsaw days before the first anniversary of the start of the war. The visit is a sign of Washington’s support for a country that was once a prickly ally and whose strident warnings of Russian aggression fell largely on deaf ears in the West before Moscow invaded last year.
Now, having successfully lobbied the U.S. and its European allies to send Ukraine modern tanks, Polish officials say they are working to push European partners and the U.S. to transfer even more advanced weapons to Kyiv: F-16 jet fighters.
President Biden arrives in Warsaw Tuesday morning for a two-day visit in which he is scheduled to meet with Poland’s leaders.
“Poland is a front-line state in a time of war; the U.S.-Poland relationship is a wartime relationship,” said Daniel Fried, who was U.S. ambassador to Warsaw from 1997 to 2000, during which time Poland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “For a long time Europe was getting weary of Poland’s warnings about Russia, but as it turned out, they were right.”
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