US president Joe Biden has urged allies to step up support for Ukraine ahead of a “difficult winter”, but fell short of backing Kyiv’s demands to allow direct strikes on Russia.
On a 24-hour trip to Berlin, the 81-year-old US leader was awarded Germany’s highest civil honour for his “dedication to the transatlantic alliance”, prompting an exchange of Seamus Heaney quotes with his German counterpart, Frank Walter Steinmeier.
As White House officials insisted they were still reviewing Ukraine’s “victory plan”, Mr Biden used a joint press appearance with chancellor Olaf Scholz to promise a fresh “surge” of military support for Ukraine.
“I know the cost is heavy,” he said. “But make no mistake: it pales in comparison to the cost of living in a world where dictators can simply take what they want.”
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Similarly Mr Scholz gave no indication of any looming shift from Berlin’s stance on the use of German weapons behind Russian lines.
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“We are supporting Ukraine as strongly as we can,” he said. “At the same time we are concerned with Nato not becoming a party to war so that this doesn’t end in an even-bigger catastrophe.”
The German leader praised the leadership of the Biden administration that had allowed Ukraine “face down imperialist Russia these last two years”.
Returning the compliment, Mr Biden praised Germany as the second-largest military and humanitarian donor to Ukraine.
“Since the invasion of Ukraine, you have showed the leadership and wisdom to recognise that this war meant a turning point in European history, and you resolved to act,” he said.
That was a nod to Germany’s taboo-breaking arms deliveries to a war zone, and defence spending boost to meet the Nato target of 2 per cent of gross domestic product. Mr Biden added: “Please keep it up!”
Following afternoon talks with Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister insisted Russia was getting “weaker”, with the war absorbing up to 40 per cent of the national budget.
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“Together with the G7, we’re working to send €50 billion of support to Ukraine, drawn from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets,” he added. “The only acceptable outcome is a sovereign Ukraine and a just peace.”
At a reception earlier, Mr Biden called the fall of the Berlin Wall, 35 years ago next month, “one of the greatest advances in human dignity in my lifetime”.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he added, was “an assault on democracy and the principles which have upheld peace in Europe”.
Drawing on Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy, Mr Biden suggested that, “when the Berlin Wall fell, hope and history rhymed. When Kyiv stood [up], hope and history rhymed”.
German president Frank Walter Steinmeier praised the outgoing US president as a “beacon of democracy” who stood by Europe “no matter what”.
“Mr President, to have you in our most dangerous moment since the cold war, to have you and your administration on our side is no less than a historical stroke of good fortune,” he said.
He had started the Heaney theme by quoting the line in from the Republic of Conscience urging public leaders to “weep to atone for the presumption to hold office”.
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Mr Biden, the German leader said, always had a “deep sense of the inevitable presumption in holding office, including the highest office”.
Hanging over Mr Biden’s farewell visit was the ghost of the Trump era, the transatlantic tensions it brought and the prospect of more after the November 5th US election.
Without mentioning Mr Trump by name, Mr Steinmeier recalled how “just a handful of years ago the distance had grown so wide, that we almost lost each other”.
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