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Monday, May 18, 2026

Background Press Call Previewing the Vice President's Trip to Munich, Germany - The White House

Via Teleconference

6:18 P.M. EST

MODERATOR: Hey, thanks. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As mentioned, today’s call is to preview the Vice President’s trip to Munich. This call will be on background, attributed to “senior administration officials.” And the contents are embargoed until the end of the call. And by joining the call you are agreeing to those ground rules.

For your awareness, our speakers today are [senior administration official] and [senior administration official]. Hereinafter they’ll be referred to as “senior administration officials.”

But before we get to the Vice President’s program in Munich, I wanted to turn over to another speaker, [senior administration official], who will offer some brief opening remarks.

So, over to you, [senior administration official].

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Great. Thanks. I just wanted to give everybody an update on the latest situation in Russia and Ukraine.

So, yesterday, the Russian government said it was withdrawing troops from the border with Ukraine. They received a lot of attention for that claim both here and around the world, but we now know it was false.

In fact, we have now confirmed that in the last several days, Russia has increased its troop presence along the Ukrainian border by as many as 7,000 troops, with some arriving as recently as today.

The Russians have also said in recent days that they are prepared to engage in diplomacy as we and our Allies have repeatedly offered. But every...



Read Full Story: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/02/16/backgroun...