US President Joe Biden lauded the bravery of Ukrainian civilians while speaking to US troops in Poland, saying they are "stepping up."
"Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone. They have a lot of guts," Biden said.
"Look at how they're stepping up. ... Women, young people standing in the middle of, in the front of a damn tank, just saying 'I'm not leaving. I'm holding my ground.' They're incredible," he said.
Biden said the stakes of the war in Ukraine extended beyond the country itself, framing the conflict as a test of democracies under threat from autocracies that could have global ramifications.
"What you're engaging in is much more than just whether or not you can alleviate people of Ukraine. We're in a new phase. Your generation, we're in an inflection point," he continued.
“The question is, who is going to prevail? Is democracy going to prevail and the values we share? Or are autocracies going to prevail? That's really what's at stake,” Biden said. “What you’re doing is consequential, really consequential.”
The conflict underway only is about 50 miles (more than 80 kilometers) from where Biden was standing in Rzeszów. Echoing the large foreign policy frame he’s used previously, but with a Russian addition, he said the assembled US service members were “in the midst of a fight between democracies and oligarchs.”
“What’s at stake, not just what we’re doing here in Ukraine to help the Ukrainian people and keep the massacre from continuing, but beyond that what’s at stake is what are your kids and grandkids going to look like in terms of their freedom?” Biden said.
He thanked the US troops, calling them the "finest fighting force in the history of the world."
Watch his remarks: