- The US President Joe Biden’s first comments since Putin’s announcement of Suspension of the US Arms Treaty.
- Biden condemned the Russian decision to pull back from the treaty,termed it a ‘Big Mistake’.
- “Putin could move to take military action against Bucharest Nine countries’ next if he’s successful in Ukraine.”
- “Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased,” he said. “They must be opposed.”
- Biden pledged “we will defend literally every inch of NATO.”
The US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a “big mistake” by suspending his country’s participation in the last remaining US-Russia nuclear arms control treaty. In his first comments since Putin’s announcement, Biden condemned the Russian decision to pull back from the treaty, known as New START.
The treaty is expected to have an immediate impact on US visibility into Russian nuclear activities, but the pact was already on life support following Moscow’s cancellation late last year of talks that had been intended to salvage an agreement that both sides have accused the other of violating.
Biden’s comments came as he was wrapping up a whirlwind, four-day visit to Poland and Ukraine with talks with leaders from the Bucharest Nine, a collection of nations in the most eastern parts of the NATO alliance that came together in response to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
As the war in Ukraine drags on, the Bucharest Nine countries’ anxieties have remained heightened. Many worries, Putin could move to take military action against them next if he’s successful in Ukraine. The alliance includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
A day earlier at the foot of Warsaw’s Royal Castle, Biden warned that Russian aggression, if unchecked, wouldn’t stop at Ukraine’s borders. “Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased,” he said. “They must be opposed.”
Addressing concerns of the NATO members that they could be next, Biden pledged that NATO’s mutual-defence pact is “sacred” and that “we will defend literally every inch of NATO.”
