US Secretary Anthony Blinken on Saturday applauded Poland, a NATO member, for its reaction to Russia’s actions. Poland is hosting approximately 10,000 U.S. troops, with more than half reaching in recent weeks.
“Poland is performing crucial work to respond to this crisis… It has done a great deal to promote security assistance to Ukraine,” he announced at a joint news conference with Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau in the town of Rzeszow.
Blinken also gave a visit to the Polish-Ukrainian border, meeting with refugees at a disused shopping mall in Korczowa that is assisting as a reception centre for hundreds of people at a time, with foldout camp beds modified in front of vacated shops.
The number of refugees could rise to 1.5 million by the end of the weekend from a new 1.3 million, the head of the United Nations refugee agency announced on Saturday. Blinken come to Poland from Brussels, where he met foreign ministers from the NATO alliance, the G7 assemblage and the European Union on Friday to examine the West’s efforts to deter Russia through a programme of brutal sanctions.
In Poland, he will also join a bipartisan U.S. Congressional delegation directed by Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks, a Democrat, and involving the committee’s ranking Republican Michael McCaul.
NATO members are giving military aid to Ukraine’s administration troops for their fight against Kremlin’s army, much of it finishing through Poland. But the alliance has dwindled Ukrainian requests to enforce a no-fly zone over the nation, saying this could aggravate a much broader and even more hazardous war.
