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Associated Press

US President Joe Biden leaves on Sunday for Europe, where he will spend time in three nations tending to alliances that have been tested by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
After arriving at night in London, Biden will meet King Charles the next day, the first time since Charles was crowned. Next is the centrepiece of the trip, the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Alliance leaders will debate the war and revise plans for dealing with Russian aggression.
The final stop is in Helsinki, where Biden on Thursday is expected to celebrate the expanding alliance, with Finland as the newest member of Nato.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the trip would “showcase the president’s leadership on the world stage.”


Biden arrives in London on Sunday night and is expected to have a full schedule of meetings on Monday.
“There’s always a lot to talk about with the UK,” said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who leads the Europe Programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
Biden will hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street. Sunak is facing an election by the end of next year and his Conservative Party is lagging badly behind the opposition in opinion polls.
Despite Sunak’s shaky political standing, he has fostered close ties with Biden and it will be their sixth meeting since Sunak took office last October.
Bergmann said Sunak’s tenure has been a nice change of pace after “there were some concerns about Boris Johnson,” one of Sunak’s predecessors, “being a loose cannon.”
Blow for Zelensky as Nato leaders offer Ukraine support, not membership
Biden will visit the king at Windsor Castle, a royal residence outside London. Biden did not attend Charles’ coronation - first lady Jill Biden went in his place - so this will be their first encounter since then.
They are expected to discuss climate change, an issue that has been a focus for both leaders, and how to finance initiatives to address the problem.
Biden will then spend two days in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which is hosting the annual Nato summit. He will take part in meetings with leaders and deliver a speech from Vilnius University.
The alliance has been reinvigorated by the war in Ukraine, and members have been pouring military hardware into the country to help repel Russia’s invasion.
Biden on Friday defended what he said was a “difficult decision” to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move his administration said was key to the fight and buttressed by Ukraine’s promise to use the controversial bombs carefully.


Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the US would send a weapon into Ukraine that more than two-thirds of Nato members have banned because it has a track record for causing many civilian casualties.
Sunak has made clear Britain “discourages” the use of cluster munitions. On Saturday he highlighted that Britain was one of 123 signatories of a convention banning their use.
Sunak said Britain was instead supporting Kyiv by providing tanks and long-range weapons.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has sharply criticised the US for pledging to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, despite the Russian military’s repeated use of the weapons during the invasion.
Russia has even talked of the move increasing the chance of nuclear war.
The US decision is another “blatant revelation of the aggressive anti-Russian course of the United States, aimed at the maximum prolongation of the conflict in Ukraine,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Saturday.
The cluster munitions were bound to kill even more civilians, she said.
Ukraine vows it will not use cluster munitions in Russia
For Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the summit “will send a clear message: Nato stands united, and Russia’s aggression will not pay.”
But Nato has also struggled to bridge divides over important issues. Finland was welcomed into the alliance this year, but Sweden’s membership has been blocked by Turkey and Hungary.
There are also disagreements over how quickly to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join Nato.
Countries on Nato’s eastern flank want to move quickly, viewing it as a way to deter Russian aggression. The US and others advocate a more cautious approach.
Biden throws weight behind Sweden’s Nato bid as summit nears
One issue has already been settled, at least for the time being. Stoltenberg’s term has been extended for a year because members could not agree on a new leader.
Senator Thom Tillis, who will attend the summit, likened the alliance to a gathering of dozens of family members who bicker and clash but nonetheless remain united.
“At the end of the day, you know you’re family,” said Tillis.
Tillis is leading a bipartisan delegation along with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who said Nato is more powerful than before.
“It’s the strongest military alliance in our history, and I think it only has gotten stronger as a result of US leadership, as the result of Stoltenberg’s leadership and as the result of the threat from Vladimir Putin to all of the Nato allies and other countries in Europe and around the world and to the international order,” she said.

After two nights in Vilnius, Biden visits Helsinki. The stop is a bit of a victory lap, but could also be a reminder of unfinished business.
The Nordic country in April became the 31st member of Nato, ending its history of nonalignment and demonstrating how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has backfired in Europe.
Finland was supposed to join alongside its neighbour Sweden, whose admission has stalled. Nato requires unanimous consent of all its members to expand, and the US has been unable to overcome objections from Turkey and Hungary.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited the White House on Wednesday and met Biden to keep up the pressure for membership. But there is little hope that the issue will be resolved in Vilnius.
King Charles to meet Joe Biden on US president’s European diplomatic trip
The White House is billing Biden’s visit to Helsinki as a “US-Nordic Leaders Summit.”
It is a much different occasion from the last time a US president visited Helsinki five years ago.
During that trip, Donald Trump held a news conference with Putin and brushed off concerns about Russian meddling in the Trump election victory.
Now Biden is heading to the city to demonstrate how his administration has held the line against Moscow and expanded Western defences.
Additional reporting by dpa


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Joe Biden

Joe Biden is heading to Europe. A king and a war are on his agenda

US President Joe Biden with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the US in March. 13, Biden will meet Sunak next week as he travels through Europe. Photo: AP

US President Joe Biden meets Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg in the Oval Office of the White House on June 13. Photo: AP 

US President Joe Biden and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Nato extends chief Jens Stoltenberg’s mandate as Ukraine war drags on

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is regarded as a safe pair of hands. Photo: AP

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was thought to be a favourite to takeover the role of nato chief after a meeting with President Biden last month. Photo: Reuters

UK’s King Charles to meet Joe Biden on US president’s European diplomatic trip next week

Britain’s King Charles, left, and US President Joe Biden at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland in 2021. Biden will meet the king at Windsor Castle on July 10 as part of a European trip. Photo: Pool Photo via AP

Blow for Zelensky as Nato leaders offer Ukraine support but not membership for now

Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Photo: dpa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups that Ankara says pose a security threat, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt. Photo: AFP

US will send cluster munitions to Ukraine, drawing criticism from rights groups

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan during a press briefing at the White House in Washington on Friday. Photo: EPA-EFE

A Ukrainian military serviceman holds a defused cluster bomb from an MSLR missile that a Ukrainian munitions expert said did not explode on impact, in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine in October. Photo: Reuters

Joe Biden throws weight behind Sweden’s Nato bid as summit nears

A Swedish armoured vehicle. Sweden and Finland applied for Nato membership last year, ditching long-held policies of military non-alignment. File photo: AFP

President Joe Biden, right, meets with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in the Oval Office. Photo: TNS

Salwan Momika tore up and burned a Koran outside Stockholm’s central mosque last Wednesday. Photo: AFP

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The US president will meet Rishi Sunak and King Charles in Britain, attend the Nato summit in Lithuania and then head to Finland
Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the US would send cluster bombs into Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Nato members have banned cluster bombs


Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the US would send cluster bombs into Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Nato members have banned cluster bombs.


Joe Biden is heading to Europe. A king and a war are on his agenda

The US president will meet Rishi Sunak and King Charles in Britain, attend the Nato summit in Lithuania and then head to Finland Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the US would send cluster bombs into Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Nato members have banned cluster bombs

The US president will meet Rishi Sunak and King Charles in Britain, attend the Nato summit in Lithuania and then head to Finland

Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the US would send cluster bombs into Ukraine. More than two-thirds of Nato members have banned cluster bombs