American President Joe Biden opened the NATO summit by announcing new air defense systems to Ukraine together with its allies. “Russia will not prevail,” he said from the stage at Washington's Mellon Auditorium , where the alliance's founding treaty was signed in 1949. “Collectively, we will provide Ukraine with additional strategic air defense systems, including additional Patriot batteries donated by the United States, Germany and Romania; Patriot components donated by Holland and other partners to enable the operation of an additional Patriot battery. And a further Samp-T system donated by Italy", reads a note from the White House.
The United States will reschedule scheduled deliveries of foreign military sales of critical air defense interceptors so it can supply Kiev with hundreds of additional interceptors next year. “Ukraine can and will stop Putin,” Biden said to applause from other NATO leaders, delivering one of the most important speeches of his career. In fact, all eyes were on the president following repeated requests from his own party to withdraw from the race for the White House following his disastrous debate performance against Republican rival Donald Trump.
Even reading from the teleprompter, Biden appeared energetic and never lost the thread of his speech, thus passing the first test of his health and age.
The former president then took credit for NATO's current strength, noting how "billions of dollars" rained into the Alliance after he pressured the allies to spend their 2% of GDP on defense. When Biden took office in 2020, only nine member countries spent this amount, now there are 23.
(Unioneonline)
