President Biden will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy on Thursday, saying the allied effort to resist Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a direct extension of the battle for freedom that raged across Europe during the second World War.
Mr Biden, 81, who was a child when Americans stormed the beaches here in 1944, will almost certainly be the last US president to speak in a Normandy remembrance, while he was alive at the time the Allied forces began pushing Adolf Hitler out of Europe.
Now, eighty years later, Biden is leading a coalition of European and other nations in a very different war on the continent, but for a very similar principle: repelling Russian President Vladimir's attempted seizure of Ukraine See Putin. .
In his speech at the Normandy American Cemetery, the president will draw a direct line between the two, linked by the defense of a rules-based international order.
“Today, in 2024, 80 years later, we see dictators once again trying to challenge the order, trying to march into Europe,” said Jake Sullivan, the president's national security adviser. He told reporters that Biden would argue that “freedom-loving nations must rally to stand against this, as we have.”
Biden's remarks at the cemetery, where 9,388 U.S. service members are buried, will mark the start of a four-day visit to France, which will include a second speech on Friday and a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron. on Saturday. He will return to Europe a few days later, for a meeting of Group of 7 leaders in Puglia, Italy.
After his speech at the cemetery, Biden will join Macron and others at Omaha Beach, site of some of the heaviest and deadliest fighting between U.S. forces and the German occupiers in France.
American officials said the grim backdrop of Normandy – where allies helped turn the tide after more than four years of war – is meant to underline what is at stake for Europe and the world if the United States and its comrades they lose their resolve and let Mr. Putin victory.
Biden said that Congress' months of refusal to approve funding for Ukraine had delayed the country's war effort, giving Russian forces an opportunity to advance along battle lines in the country's north and east.
Sullivan said the president will give a speech “that will talk, against the backdrop of war in Europe today, about the sacrifices that those heroes and veterans made 80 years ago and how it is our obligation to continue their mission to fight for freedom.”
On Friday, aides said Biden will return to the beaches of Normandy to give a second speech, this time at Pointe du Hoc, where Army Rangers have scaled huge cliffs in an attempt to protect critical military positions held by the Germans.
Officials said the president will use this context to make a broader point about the dangers of isolationism and the need to protect and cultivate democracy. John F. Kirby, a retired Navy admiral and White House national security spokesman, said the speech would be different from Biden's previous speeches on the topic of protecting democracy.
“You can point to real lives that were affected at Pointe du Hoc,” he said. “You can point to the real blood shed in pursuit of that higher goal. And you can tell stories of real men who climbed real cliffs and faced real bullets and real dangers in search of something much bigger than themselves.