Remarks by President Biden on the Explosion and Loss of Life in Eastern Poland
Grand Hyatt Hotel
Bali, Indonesia
9:53 A.M. CIT
THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for being here. I — as you saw, I just met with the leaders of NATO and the G7 and — to talk about the latest events in Europe, and I briefed them on my discussions with President Duda of Poland, as well as NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg. And we agreed to support Poland’s investigation into the explosion in rural Poland, near the Ukrainian border. And I’m going to make sure we figure out exactly what happened.
Our empathy — sympathy goes out to — apparently, two people were killed.
And then we’re going to collectively determine our next step as we investigate and proceed. There was total unanimity among the folks at the table.
And we also discussed the latest series of Russian missile attacks, which are continuing the brutality and inhumanity that they’ve demonstrated throughout this war against Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructures. And they’ve been totally unconscionable, what they’re doing. Totally unconscionable.
And the moment when the world came together at the G20 to urge de-escalation, Russia continues to — has chosen to escalate in Ukraine, while we’re meeting. I mean, there were scores and scores of attack — missile attacks into western Ukraine.
We support Ukraine fully in this moment, and we have — we have since the start of this conflict. And we’re going to continue to do whatever it takes to give them the capacity to defend themselves.
Q Mr. President, is it too early to say whether this missile was fired from Russia?
THE PRESIDENT: There is preliminary information that contests that. I don’t want to say that until we completely investigate. But it is — I — it’s unlikely, in the minds of the trajectory, that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see. We’ll see.
Q Mr. President, has Poland suggested invoking Article 4 or 5 from NATO, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: The consensus is we’re going to probably have a meeting of the — of the — of the ambassadors. So that’s — it looks like we’re going to go do next.
Thank you.
9:56 A.M. CIT
