Poroshenko to meet Pence, Stoltenberg, and Duda in Munich

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko will meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence for the first time on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, according to Poroshenko’s press team. The meeting will happen as part of his working visit to Munich on Feb. 17-18. Poroshenko is also scheduled to meet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Polish president Andrzej Duda over the course of the working trip.

James Hydzik: President Poroshenko’s trip is indeed a working one. This will be his first face-to-face contact with the new U.S. administration as well as his first meeting with Stoltenberg after this week’s campaign by the Americans to (a) assure their NATO partners that the U.S. still regards the alliance as a vital partner, and (b) to get laggard partners to begin paying their share sooner rather than later. Moreover, good relations with neighboring Poland are vital for Ukraine’s security efforts, and a meeting with President Duda is important to keeping up ties. We do not expect any major announcements from these meetings, but much will be read into the meeting with Pence, particularly in comparison to the frosty meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday.