Biden assures Eastern European allies as Russia, China confer

President Biden concluded a three-day trip to Ukraine and Poland on Wednesday, telling Eastern European allies that NATO will have their back if Russia tries to expand the war.

Mr. Biden spent the morning meeting in Warsaw, Poland, with leaders of the Bucharest Nine, a group of countries that make up NATO’s flank closest to Russia’s western borders. The group, made up of lands once in the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, includes: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

The leaders impressed on Mr. Biden fears that they would be the next targets if Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeded in his war in Ukraine. The countries at the table Wednesday have also taken in the vast bulk of the millions of Ukrainian refugees driven from their homes by the Russian military campaign that began Feb. 24, 2022.
 
“The war has brought nothing but suffering and despair, killing and displacing millions of Ukrainians, unprecedented destruction and uncertainty,” said Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. “We, the leaders of the eastern flank, have the duty to stand firm in defense of our peace.”

Mr. Biden reaffirmed that if Russia attacks any Eastern European nation, the U.S. would invoke the NATO charter’s Article 5, which stipulates that an attack against one member of the military alliance is an attack against all the members.
 
“We will literally defend every inch of NATO,” Mr. Biden said at one point, “every inch of NATO.”

In response to Russia’s invasion, NATO has doubled its presence in the region in the last 12 months to eight multinational battle groups. Some 10,000 American soldiers are now stationed in Poland alone.

Russia’s Mr. Putin, who launched an unapologetic defense of his invasion in a speech the day before, was seeking his own support, meeting with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi at the Kremlin for talks.

Mr. Wang said China supported a deepening partnership between Moscow and Beijing, but did not bring up the prospect of direct military aid for Russia’s war — something the Biden administration has warned Beijing against in recent days.
 
China, Mr. Wang said, would “not be overpowered” by “coercion or pressure” from other parties to back off from its deepening alliance with Russia. Amid rumors that China may offer its own plan to end the fighting, Chinese President Xi Jinping is scheduled to give a “peace speech” Friday in Beijing on the war’s anniversary.
 
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday accused China of “strongly considering” providing “lethal assistance” to Russia.

Those same tensions were also on display as Mr. Biden condemned Mr. Putin’s suspension of his country’s participation in the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Moscow and Washington.
 
“Big mistake,” Mr. Biden told reporters on his way to the Bucharest Nine meeting. It was his first comment since Mr. Putin announced Russia would suspend its observance of the treaty, known as New START, a decision which the lower house of the Russian parliament endorsed on Wednesday.
 
In his annual state of the nation address to Russian lawmakers on Tuesday, Mr. Putin announced he is suspending participation in the treaty, which regulates the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.

Hours after Mr. Putin’s speech, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the decision to suspend was “reversible” and Moscow was not withdrawing from the pact. The Biden administration also said it was open to talks with the Kremlin on reviving the accord, which was not set to expire until 2026.

The treaty limits the number of deployed intercontinental nuclear weapons and permits both the U.S. and Russia to conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites.

Separately, United Nations officials in a new estimate this week said Russia’s invasion has resulted in more than 8,000 civilians dead and 13,000 injured. More than 90% of the casualties were caused by artillery shells and airstrikes, U.N. officials announced this week.

U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk on Tuesday said the actual figures of casualties there are likely “substantially higher” because the world body’s numbers reflected only verified individual cases.

“Our data are only the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Turk said.
 
Mr. Biden’s whirlwind trip to the region, kicked off by a surprise visit to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday, was designed to show American support for the region was not faltering.
 
“You’re the front lines of our collective defense and you know, better than anyone, what’s at stake in this conflict, not just for Ukraine but for the freedom of democracies throughout Europe and around the world,” Mr. Biden told the leaders.

With the exception of Bulgaria and Hungary, the Bucharest Nine members are among the strongest supporters of increasing military aid to Ukraine and taking more aggressive steps against Moscow.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda criticized the U.S. and other NATO leaders for being too cautious in their aid to Kyiv. Mr. Biden and other Western leaders have balked at some requests from Ukraine, including a plea for advanced NATO fighter jets, for fear of being dragged into a broader fight with Russia.

“Let’s give Ukraine all the weapons it needs to defeat the aggressor,” Mr. Nauseda tweeted just hours before the meeting. “Let’s continue building up our own defenses. [The] eastern NATO flank must remain our focus. No soft spots should be left.”

Mr. Biden did not directly address Mr. Nauseda’s remarks but underscored the need for NATO to remain united against Russian aggression.

• Staff writer Mike Glenn contributed to this report.