Posted by 
President Joe Biden’s meeting with Poland’s two leaders at the White House on Tuesday is both about getting more aid to Kyiv, and an attempt to show that even political rivals can come together for the defense of Ukraine.
Conservative Polish President Andrzej Duda will join the man who replaced him as prime minister, center-right Donald Tusk, on Tuesday for a discussion about sending more weapons to Kyiv. They have an intense political feud at home, but they’re putting differences aside to convince Congress and Biden to ensure Ukraine doesn’t lose more ground to Russia.
“Especially on the importance of support for Ukraine, there really is national unity in Poland, so going together is this absolutely unique sign of political unity meant to show that this is a serious situation,” said Michał Baranowski, who leads the German Marshall Fund’s Poland office and is in close contact with senior officials in Warsaw.
Duda and Tusk’s hope is that their show of unity will convince partisans in Washington to work together in common cause of defending a democracy in Europe. White House officials said they want to see that message resonate throughout Washington — and particularly in the halls of Congress.
In a clear signal to Republicans, Duda used an op-ed in the Washington Post Monday to call on all NATO members to increase their defense spending to three percent of their GDP.
Duda, a darling of conservatives, will also meet alone with Speaker Mike Johnson, who hasn’t brought the $60 billion supplemental for Ukraine aid to the House floor. “Duda is our Republican whisperer,” said Baranowski.
U.S. officials said the gathering was scheduled partly as a celebration for the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO. But it’s clear that Ukraine will dominate the Oval Office conversation, even if other issues like energy security and democracy protection in Poland will come up. “The leaders will reaffirm their unwavering support for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s brutal war of conquest,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a February statement.
There’s fear throughout Europe that the U.S. won’t pass the supplemental, but concern is palpable in Warsaw, which under Duda and Tusk’s leadership became a key node in sending weapons to Ukraine.
CIA Director Bill Burns told lawmakers Monday that, with the supplemental, Ukraine could hold its positions into early 2025 and strike strategic Russian positions in Crimea and the Black Sea. Without it, Russia will take even more key cities and territory. “And that, it seems to me, would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States.”
The White House is expected to announce a new $300 million package for Ukraine on Tuesday that will include a number of Anti-Personnel/Anti-Materiel missiles, an older version of the Army Tactical Missile System, which travels 100 miles and carries warheads containing hundreds of cluster bomblets.
Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, echoed Duda’s push for boosted defense budgets in a Tuesday meeting with reporters just blocks from the White House.
“Three percent was more or less what western European countries were spending during peacetime during the Cold War,” Sikorski said. “This is just an acknowledgement that continental peace has ended and that disarmament and deindustrialization in the defense field have gone too far and you need to spend up front to bring back even the capacities to produce more weapons.”
Poland is one of only three countries, along with the U.S. and Greece, currently spending three percent on defense.
Sikorski also told reporters he urged Johnson, who hasn’t budged on Ukraine aid two weeks after being pressured by Biden, Burns and the three other congressional leaders during an intense Oval Office meeting, to think beyond his current political calculus and consider what a Russian victory in Ukraine might mean.
Should Russia succeed in Ukraine and then advance further west, eventually NATO “will need more troops in Poland, including American troops,” Sikorski said. “So if you don’t want to send your people to Europe, the best thing is to defeat him in Ukraine.”
