Starmer is also expected to include discussions over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s long-awaited “victory plan,” which Zelensky made public this week amid further Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.
The proposal includes a demand for Ukraine to immediately be invited to join NATO, as well as requests for permission to use Western long-range weapons against targets deep within Russia, with the aim of forcing Moscow to negotiate an end to the war.
Scholz and Biden have resisted Zelensky’s latest demands, fearing being drawn into direct confrontation with Russia.
Re-arranged visit to last 19 hours
Biden’s trip comes over a week after he cancelled his original plans to travel to Germany due to Hurricane Milton, a deadly storm that struck the south-eastern United States.
He had been due to carry out the first official state visit to Berlin by a US president since Ronald Reagan, as well as attending a key international summit on aid for Ukraine at the US air base in Ramstein in western Germany.
Instead, the hastily re-arranged visit is now expected to last just 19 hours before Biden returns to Washington.
Biden’s trip comes just three months before the end of his term in office, and just weeks before Vice President Kamala Harris faces former president Donald Trump in November’s election, with significant implications for the future of trans-Atlantic ties.
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