As Ukraine entered its third week of defending itself from Russia’s unprovoked invasion, Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as one of President Joe Biden’s go-to emissaries to key allies in America’s effort to shore up Ukraine’s defence and coordinate aid and relief efforts with Nato allies.
The vice president left Washington on Wednesday for a two-leg trip to Poland and Romania — both ex-Warsaw Pact nations that have joined Nato over the decades since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Perhaps more importantly, both of her destinations share land borders with Ukraine, and in the weeks since Russia began attacking have taken in many of the approximately two million refugees the United Nations estimates to have fled their homes.
At the vice president’s first public appearance — a bilateral meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki — the Polish leader thanked Ms Harris for “the unity of the Western world,” while she commended the “extraordinary work” performed by the Polish population to welcome the largest flood of European refugees since the Second World War.
At a joint media availability with Polish President Andrzej Duda a short time later, Ms Harris again praised the “leadership” shown by Polish citizens, telling reporters: “we've witnessed extraordinary acts of generosity and kindness. We have seen through images on the television - looking at images of ordinary people doing extraordinary things in support of the dignity and the wellbeing of perfect strangers”
The vice president later announced a $50 billion contribution to the UN World Food Programme and pledged to “continue” with US efforts to support the work Mr Duda and the Polish people have undertaken to bear the burden of this latest refugee crisis.
Ms Harris also reaffirmed what Mr Biden has called America’s “ironclad” support for Nato and the mutual defence provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty, and vowed that the US — together with Poland — would do “everything together, in partnership, in solidarity, to support what is necessary at this very moment in terms of the humanitarian and security needs of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people”.
Under questioning from a Polish journalist, she described the US-Poland relationship as “deep, enduring, and strong” and said the crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made it stronger still.
At a time when Russian president Vladimir Putin’s escalating military adventurism and bombastic rhetoric about reclaiming territory of a “greater Russia” has put former governments and residents of former Soviet bloc states on edge, Ms Harris touched all the bases in her remarks. But what she left unsaid and the issues she did not raise underscore the fact that there are some gaps in the relationship between Washington and Warsaw that aren’t likely to be resolved so long as the threat of Russia looms.
Those Polish planes
Ms Harris denied that the Pentagon’s rejection of a plan — floated earlier this week by Mr Duda’s government — to place Polish Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets “at the disposal” of the US for eventual retrieval and use by Ukrainian pilots.
US defence officials appeared caught unawares when the Polish government issued a statement about the plan earlier this week after repeated pleas for the aircraft from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby put the kibosh on the proposal at a Wednesday press briefing, telling reporters the US intelligence community had found the Polish jets were “not likely to significantly change the effectiveness of Ukrainian Air Force relative to Russian capabilities,” and would provide “little increased capabilities at high risk” of being seen as Nato escalating the conflict.
When asked what the US was prepared to do to bolster Ukrainian air defence in the absence of a plan to provide aircraft familiar to Ukrainian pilots, Ms Harris pointed to what she called the “ongoing process” of delivering anti-armour and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukrainian forces.
Mr Duda interjected to say Poland had “behaved in such a way as a reliable member of Nato should behave” by involving the US in the proposal to provide Ukraine with the Soviet-era jets, and tacitly defended the US response.
But the continuing reports of Russian atrocities in Ukraine, most recently Wednesday’s bombing of a maternity hospital — and Mr Zelensky’s impassioned pleas for the West’s help to “close the skies” above his country — mean the issue of how far to go in arming Ukrainian forces is not going away any time soon.
Will the US take in Ukrainian refugees?
Asked whether the United States would “make a specific allocation for Ukrainian refugees,” Ms Harris responded with nervous laughter before remarking: “A friend in need is a friend indeed”.
The vice president said she had discussed the matter with Mr Duda and reiterated her previous praise for Poland’s efforts to absorb the record flow of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s destruction.
However, she made no commitment beyond pledging that the US would remain “absolutely prepared to do what we can and what we must to support Poland in terms of the burden that they have taken”.
What about the rest of the Biden administration’s prior concerns about Poland?
When Ms Harris and Mr Biden took office in January 2021, Poland’s current position as a key ally on Nato’s eastern flank was not the most pressing facet of the Washington-Warsaw relationship.
Instead, the Biden administration was looking to prevent Poland from continuing the democratic backsliding that has kept the country in an ongoing constitutional crisis since the Polish Law and Justice party gained unified control of the presidency and parliament in the 2015 elections.
One potential source of tensions was diffused in late 2021, when Mr Duda vetoed a law that would’ve required US-based Discovery Communications to offload control of TVN24 — Poland’s most-watched news channel and one of the last independent television stations in the country.
But the vice president’s remarks showed how the present crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed a whole host of issues to the side.
Not once did Ms Harris mention LGBT+ rights, press freedom, the importance of an independent judiciary, reproductive freedom, or the need for free, fair elections — all top priorities in what she and Mr Biden have tried to characterise as part of a foreign policy that promotes democracy in a global battle against autocracy.
As long as Russia looms, those issues will most likely remain on the back burner as far as the US-Poland relationship is concerned.
