UK PM to visit Poland, NATO chief amid Ukraine crisis

WARSAW (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will visit Poland and NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday amid tensions over the security situation in Ukraine.

Johnson will visit British soldiers stationed in Poland together with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and will also meet President Andrzej Duda, a Polish foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. Johnson is also set to meet North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) chief Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on the same day, according to a NATO statement. It did not contain the meeting’s agenda. The visits come as Western countries are working to de-escalate the situation on the Ukrainian border, where thousands of Russian troops are gathered.

Defence minister Ben Wallace had said on Monday week that Britain would send a further 350 troops to Poland. Last year it sent 100 troops to Poland to help support it with a migrant crisis at its border with Belarus.