NORMANDY – President Biden will mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy on Thursday by stating that the Allied effort to resist the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a direct extension of the battle for freedom that raged across Europe during the War World. II.
Biden, 81, who was a small child when the Americans stormed the beaches here in 1944, will almost certainly be the last American president to speak at a Normandy memorial who was alive at the time the Allied forces began to expel Adolf Hitler from Europe.
Now, eight decades later, Biden is leading a coalition of European and other nations in a very different war on the continent, but on a very similar principle: confronting the attempted takeover of Ukraine by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. . .
In remarks at the Normandy American Cemetery, the president will draw a direct line between the two, connected 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 on Europe,” said Jake Sullivan, the president’s national security adviser. He told reporters that Biden would advocate that “freedom-loving nations must unite to oppose that as we have.”
Biden’s remarks at the cemetery, where 9,388 members of the U.S. military are buried, will be the start of a four-day visit to France, which will include a second speech on Friday and a state dinner hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France. on Saturday. He will return to Europe a few days later, for a meeting of the leaders of the Group of 7 countries in Apulia, Italy.
After his remarks at the cemetery, Biden will join Macron and others on Omaha Beach, site of some of the heaviest and deadliest fighting between U.S. forces and German occupiers in France.
U.S. officials said the grim backdrop of Normandy – where allies helped turn the tide after more than four years of war – is intended to underscore what is at stake for Europe and the world if the United States and its friendly nations lose. their determination and allow Mr. Putin to win.
Biden has said that months of Congress’s refusal to approve funds for Ukraine delayed the war effort there, giving Russian forces a chance to advance along battle lines in the country’s north and east.
Sullivan said the president would deliver a speech “that will speak, in the context of the current war in Europe, of the sacrifices 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 deliver a second speech, this time at Pointe du Hoc, where Army Rangers scaled massive cliffs in an effort to secure critical military positions held by the Germans.
Officials said the president would use that backdrop to make a broader point about the dangers of isolationism and the need to protect and foster 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 that was shed in pursuit of that higher goal. And you can tell stories about real men who climbed real cliffs and faced real bullets and real dangers in the pursuit of something much, much bigger than themselves.”