Biden Meets With 9 NATO ‘Eastern Flank’ Leaders, Vows US Defense

President Biden on the segment of his 4-day Ukraine and Poland trip has met with the heads of state of the so-called NATO Eastern flank countries in Warsaw.

The New York Times quite dramatically frames the meeting as follows at the opening of its reporting: “If Russian President Vladimir V. Putin were to order tanks into other European countries, the nine nations along NATO’s eastern flank would be the likeliest targets.”

Biden conveyed reassurances that the United States is prepared to speed to their defense if they come under offensive action by Moscow. These nations include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

“These are largely the group of eastern flank NATO allies who are basically and, quite frankly, literally on the front lines of our collective defense right now,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby had previewed. 

He said the president’s purpose in the meeting is to “reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for the security of that alliance and trans-Atlantic unity.” It’s also meant to send a message to Putin that his country can’t intimidate these democracies, some of them relatively new and fragile.

While an “expansionist Russia” has been a key talking point in the West since the Russian invasion of Ukraine kicked off a year ago, Russia has shown no signs that it wishes to expand the conflict to other countries. The only country which has experienced significant political instability as a result of the war across its border is tiny Moldova. 

President Biden in Warsaw meeting with the Bucharest Nine — eastern-flank NATO allies with proximity to Russia.

Those states include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. pic.twitter.com/GeQqBVB39N

— The Recount (@therecount) February 22, 2023

As for the latest on Moldova, Reuters reports that Putin “revoked on Tuesday a 2012 decree that in part underpinned Moldova’s sovereignty in resolving the future of the Transdniestria region – a Moscow-backed separatist region which borders Ukraine and where Russia keeps troops.”

Interestingly, Moldovan President Maia Sandu on Wednesday invited President Biden to visit the former Soviet Republic – something which is unlikely to happen, however.