Against the background of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, US President Joe Biden thanked the US soldiers in Poland for their deployment on NATO’s eastern flank. “I came for a simple, essential reason,” Biden said on Friday during a visit to troops in Rzeszow, about 90 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. “To say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your service.” He added, “God bless you all and keep you safe.” Biden underscored that 100,000 US soldiers are now in Europe due to troop reinforcements because of the Ukraine war.
Biden said the current conflict is about more than helping the people of Ukraine and stopping the “massacres.” It is also about the freedom of the children and grandchildren of American soldiers. In the past ten years, more democracies have been lost in the world than have been founded. The question is whether democracies or autocracies will prevail in global competition, said Biden. “That’s probably what’s at stake. So what you do matters a lot.”