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US President Biden (right) visiting US troops in Poland: "What you are doing is of great importance"
Photo:
EVELYN HOCKSTEIN / REUTERS
US President Joe Biden paid tribute to Poland's commitment to taking in war refugees from Ukraine with a visit to NATO's eastern flank.
"I'm here in Poland to see the humanitarian crisis firsthand," Biden said on Friday in Rzeszow, Poland -- just 90 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
Biden visited US troops stationed there in Poland and, together with Poland's head of state Andrzej Duda, found out about the care for the refugees.
Almost 2.24 million have entered the country so far, the majority have stayed in Poland.
"I came for one simple, essential reason," Biden said.
'To say thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your service.” Biden underlined that 100,000 US soldiers are now in Europe due to troop reinforcements because of the Ukraine war.
"You are in the midst of a struggle between democracies and autocrats," he told the soldiers.
"What you're doing matters a lot, really matters a lot."
At the same time, Biden paid tribute to the Ukrainians' fight against Russian troops.
He compared their resistance to the student protests on Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. As an example, he cited "a 30-year-old woman standing in front of a (Russian) tank with a gun."
After the protests on Tiananmen Square, which were violently suppressed by the Chinese army in June 1989, a photo went around the world showing a demonstrator confronting several Chinese tanks.
During his visit, the US President described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “a man whom I frankly believe to be a war criminal”.
The US President had already described the Kremlin boss as a "war criminal" last week.
Moscow called the choice of words "unforgivable" and summoned the US ambassador to Moscow a few days later.
Biden wants to hold talks with Polish government officials in Warsaw on Saturday.
A visit by the US President to a reception center for Ukrainian refugees is also planned.
Biden's trip to the NATO partner country is all about Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
Poland borders both Ukraine and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
The country is also hoping for further US military support.
sol/dpa/AFP