Newsman: The 30-member NATO alliance gathered in an emergency summit at its Brussels headquarters on Thursday about Russia’s war against Ukraine as the conflict reached the one-month mark. The US President Biden met with NATO and G-7 allies. Biden is scheduled to travel to Poland on Friday. The NATO summit was followed by a meeting with leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations and an address to European Union leaders, the White House said.
President Biden said that Russia should be removed from the G-20, the group that represents 20 of the world’s largest economies, as Western allies gathered in Europe to discuss fresh support for Kyiv that includes imposing further punishment on Moscow.
The president made the foreign trip to attend an emergency summit of all 30 NATO leaders to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO allies, participate in a pre-scheduled meeting of the European Council — the political body of the European Union — and meet with leaders of the Group of Seven, or G-7, major industrial nations.
The emergency summit set to talk about plans to bolster troop rotations in countries along the southern portion of its eastern flank — and contingency plans in case Russian aggression intensifies.
“We are determined to continue to impose costs on Russia to bring about the end of this brutal war,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said as the meeting began, paying tribute to “the great courage of the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian armed forces fighting for their freedom and their rights.”
Presiden Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said,
NATO allies have stayed remarkably united thus far in their response to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. Biden’s mission ahead of the meeting was “to ensure we stay united, to cement our collective resolve, to send a powerful message that we are prepared and committed to this for as long as it takes.”
Sullivan said the group would also have an announcement Friday after Biden’s meeting with the E.U. leaders about a plan to reduce European dependence on oil from Russia.
A key topic during the NATO meeting was China and a recognition that leaders of the alliance need to continue to call on Beijing not to support Russia and to push for an end to the conflict, the senior administration.
President Joe Biden took questions at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, addressing warnings of a possible chemical weapons attack by Russia in Ukraine, after meeting with European leaders Thursday and following Ukraine’s President Zelenskky pleading with them to do more to help.
Noting Biden has warned there’s a “real threat” in Russia using chemical weapons in Ukraine, the first question to him was on whether the U.S. has gathered specific intelligence that suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering deploying chemical weapons and whether the U.S. or NATO respond with military action if he did use them.
“I’m not going to give you intelligence data, number one,” Biden said. “Number two, we would respond. We would respond if he uses it, and the nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use.”
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega followed up, and asked, “If chemical weapons were used in Ukraine could that trigger a military response from NATO?”
“It would trigger a response in kind,” Biden replied. “Whether or not — you’re asking whether NATO would cross — we’d make that decision at the time.”
“Putin is getting exactly the opposite of what he intended to have as a consequence of going into Ukraine,” Biden said, adding later on that he was “banking on NATO being split.”
Biden also described his call last week with China’s President Xi Jinping as “very straightforward” and said that, while “I made no threats,” he did make clear Xi would be “putting himself in significant jeopardy” if China helped Russia with its invasion of Ukraine.
Biden also answered a definitive “yes,” when asked he believes that Russia should be removed from the G20, but noted that it “would depend on the G20” to make that decision.
He said that point was raised today by G20 leaders and that he raised the possibility that if removing Russia can’t be done because of “Indonesia and others” not in agreement, Ukraine should be able to attend future G20 meetings.
And when he was asked if Zelenskyy needs to cede any Ukrainian territory in order to gain a cease-fire with Russia, Biden said, “that is a total judgment based on Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged an increase in military aid for his country during an address to the NATO summit in Brussels via video link. The Ukrainian leader’s ability to rally countries to Kyiv’s cause in video messages from the capital has served as a symbol of Ukraine’s defiant defense and Russia’s struggling advance.
