Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, senior administration officials told The Hill.
Zelenskyy had spoken with President Joe Biden earlier in the week, where the White House said he assured the Ukrainian leader that NATO would respond rapidly to any Russian aggression against his country, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Harris will also meet with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, an official told The Hill.
According to another official, the vice president will give a speech at the Munich conference regarding a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, arguing that an invasion would weaken Russia’s influence on the world stage.
The Hill reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also go to Munich for the conference.
The news comes as Ukrainian intelligence reported that the buildup of Russian troops on their border has persisted despite claims of a drawdown by the Kremlin, according to CNN.
The total number of Russian troops at the border has increased in recent days to more than 148,000, including more than 126,000 ground troops, the report indicated.
“Unfortunately, there’s a difference between what Russia says and what it does. And what we’re seeing is no meaningful pullback,” Blinken said on ABC’s ”Good Morning America.”
“On the contrary, we continue to see forces, especially forces that would be in the vanguard of any renewed aggression against Ukraine, continuing to be at the border, to mass at the border,” he said.
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