Vice President Kamala Harris will face her highest-stakes foreign policy assignment yet this weekend in Germany, where she will try to keep European allies unified amid growing concern over the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
She will attend the annual Munich Security Conference as President Joe Biden and other western leaders warn that the threat of an invasion remains high. That's despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's statements that he is committed to further talks.
Harris has a packed schedule of high-level meetings, including sessions with the presidents of Ukraine and Germany. She'll also deliver a major address on Saturday focused on the situation in Ukraine.
As NPR reports, Harris is set to meet with around 13 heads of state over the weekend while in Munich. And at that major address by the vice president at an annual conference, some of the world's top national security officials will attend.
U.S. officials maintain that Russia has not kept to its word that it would be withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine. Instead, around 7,000 additional Russian troops were added along the country's border with Ukraine.
Harris will meet with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday and then with leaders of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, who are members of NATO and have expressed worry about Russian incursions into Ukraine because of their own proximity to Russia. As NPR reported, Vice President Harris will then meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday, and Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
