It s the calling of our lifetime, of all time. steel for the struggle ahead. our unity will not falter, i promise you. president joe biden closing out the nato summit in lithuania with an impassioned speech supporting ukraine and its fight against russia s invasion. we ll have more on his remarks and go through what s happening today in helsinki as the president wraps up his european tour. and national security council spokesman john kirby joins us in just a moment. we ll talk to him about president biden s meeting with the ukrainian president and much more of what s going on on the world stage. you know, willie, an hour ago, we had jonathan lemire live from lithuania talking about the summit, talking about how they were moving on to helsinki, and it really is striking, the difference that five years
Alliance. the white house hoping the nato expansion will send a message to russia. rumors of the death of nato s unity were greatly exaggerated. vladimir putin has been counting on the west to crack, nato to crack, the transatlantic alliance to crack. he has been disappointing at every turn. reporter: president biden skipped a leaders dinner at the presidential palace here this evening, sending jait antony blinken in his place instead. this is the third time at one of these large summits where the president has either left a dinner early or skipped it entirely. the white house explains the president was taking time to prepare for a major speech here in vilnius tomorrow, as well as that final day of the summit. he will then head on to helsinki for his final leg of the trip. arlette saenz live in vilnius, thank you so much. let s move to ukraine for reaction and how it may impact the carrying out of the war. cnn senior national security
Alliance, and they ll have the chance to discuss the important business of the nato summit, even if sweden is not participating. why has sweden not yet exceeded into nato. there are two members, hungary and turkey, who have not gone through the process of ratifying their membership. the trip that the president will be making next week to lithuania, the host of the nato summit will be part of a broader trip, including a meeting with king charles and end with a trip to finland. why is that significant? significant has joined nato, one of the newest members, but president biden s visit to helsinki will recall what president trump did during his time in office. he met, sat down face-to-face with vladimir putin of russia. it was a rather friendly discussion in which ultimately president trump seemed to side with the russian president on the question of whether russia was involved in interfering in our elections in 2016. so on a very important diplomatic trip, this will also be potentially a
And winning quickly. - that is a listen to me, don t listen to the crazies. he s always been hawkish on russia. it s a good thing, but we all remember president trump s visit to helsinki and the handshake with president putin. if you are reelected, all bets are off his elbow true and fair enough. there is no doubt in my mind that victory, as far as i m concerned, is that the russian federation is entirely out of ukraine. i think the us and our allies are at this juncture, committed to make that vision a reality. you look at president trump, the 45th president, and obviously his unwillingness to criticise vladimir putin, i think what the senate minority leader said today was unequivocal we will
When russia late last year said there couldn t be an expansion of nato, the read here m fin finland and sweden was russia s changed its position and the invasion of ukraine tipped everything completely in favor of joining nato, from 20%, 30% of the population that wanted to join. and the invasion of ukraine it went up to 60%. it s now sort of in the high 70s. so a lot of people wanting in. and what you find here in finland and what we found yesterday when we went with government officials to see their secure bunker system underneath helsinki is really that sense of a long-term, lack of distrust about their eastern neighbor. it s been going on for decades and decades. question is, when is a parking garage not a parking