President Biden is scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday amid a critical moment in the war with Russia, with both countries seeking ways to reverse momentum on the battlefield.
The two presidents will meet in Paris and take part in ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the battle that turned the tide of the war against Nazi Germany in World War II. Biden is scheduled to return to Normandy later in the day to deliver a speech honoring U.S. soldiers and drawing connections between that long-ago war and the current conflict in Ukraine.
The meeting was the first between the leaders of the United States and Ukraine since December and came just days after Biden gave Ukraine permission to shell Russian territory with U.S.-supplied weapons, a change of policy after more than two years of restrictions aimed at avoiding escalating tensions with the nuclear-armed nation.
But Biden only relaxed the restrictions enough to authorize strikes on military targets just across the border in the northeast to protect Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. Long-range attacks deep into Russia remain banned.
Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials remain frustrated by the restraints and are calling on Biden to give them more freedom. Ukraine is also disappointed that Biden will not attend a peace summit that Zelensky is hosting in Switzerland on June 15. Vice President Kamala Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan are scheduled to attend instead.
While not fulfilling all of Mr. Zelenskiy’s wishes, Mr. Biden’s policy shift on using U.S. weapons against targets inside Russia — a tactic supported by other NATO nations — provoked a predictably irritated reaction from Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, who has threatened retaliatory measures.
Speaking to reporters in St. Petersburg this week, Putin suggested that such a move meant Russia had the right to send “such weapons to parts of the world where they can attack sensitive installations of any country that launches an attack against Russia.”
The United States has been Ukraine’s most important arms supplier since Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022. But Biden has been hesitant to provide more advanced weaponry for fear of worsening relations with Moscow, and House Republican leaders blocked additional military aid for six months, leaving Ukrainian defense forces strapped for ammunition and weapons as Russia launched its onslaught.
Congress finally passed a $61 billion aid package in April, and arms deliveries began again.
Biden’s meeting with Zelenskiy will be the first of two in the coming days. Biden is also due to meet his Ukrainian counterpart at the G7 summit in Italy later next week.
“This demonstrates our deep commitment to Ukraine at this critical time,” Sullivan told reporters this week. “The opportunity for the president and Mr. Zelensky to meet twice will be an opportunity to have a real in-depth discussion about all aspects of the war and all the issues.”
Biden’s speech from Normandy on Friday afternoon was intended to further connect the struggle to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny with efforts to defend Ukraine against Russian aggression 80 years later, expanding on a theme he expressed at Thursday’s ceremony.
He will speak from Pointe du Hoc, the site where Army Rangers scaled a 100-foot cliff and destroyed a suspected German artillery battery on June 6, 1944, the day of the Normandy landings, in one of the most daring moments of the invasion of Europe.
In doing so, Biden will be following in the footsteps of President Ronald Reagan, who delivered one of the most memorable speeches of his presidency at Pointe du Hoc in 1984, making a similar case for American leadership and democracy on the world stage at a time of growing isolationist tensions at home.
