US President Joe Biden ended his two-day visit to Poland with a speech in the courtyard of Warsaw's Royal Castle.

Biden used the visit primarily to express his solidarity with Ukraine as a victim of Russia's war of aggression.

Recalling the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dictatorships in Eastern Europe, he said: “The struggle for democracy did not end with the end of the Cold War.

Russia has choked off democracy (at home) and is trying to do the same elsewhere.”

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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Russian President Putin ordered an attack on Ukraine with mendacious justifications.

But “the darkness of autocracy will never quench the flame of liberty.” Biden, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also had surprise meetings with their respective ministers, Oleksiy Reznikov and Dmytro Kuleba, in Warsaw on Saturday.

These had arrived in Poland on a train journey from Kyiv – currently the safest means of transport in the country – that was kept secret until the end.

Biden pledged "further support" to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities.

Biden to Russian people: "You are not our enemy"

The devout Catholic Biden began his speech at the Palace with the words that Pope John Paul II had addressed to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Rome in 1978: “Do not be afraid!” Contributed to overcoming the dictatorships.

The President had previously spoken to refugees from Ukraine in Warsaw's National Stadium and held their children in his arms.

During this meeting he referred to Putin as a "butcher".

"I saw the tears in the mothers' eyes," Biden later said.

The President also addressed the Russian people in his speech.

"You are not our enemy," he said.

But "that millions of families are displaced by bombing raids are not the actions of a great nation."

Russia used to experience great suffering itself, such as the Wehrmacht blockade of Leningrad in World War II.

"This is exactly what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine now," he said, referring to the siege and bombing of cities like Mariupol in Ukraine.

About 2.2 million refugees from Ukraine have entered Poland since the beginning of the war;

most of it is still in the country.

Biden was in Rzeszów in the southeast of the country near the border with Ukraine on Friday.

There he met US soldiers stationed in Poland and thanked them for their service.

The region is the main corridor for war refugees leaving Ukraine, as well as for the delivery of aid and arms to Ukraine.

Since Russia's war against Ukraine began, America has more than doubled its troops in NATO country Poland to about 9,000 troops.