INTERNATIONAL: United States President Joe Biden has arrived on Thursday night ,March 24, at the European Council in Brussels to attend a summit of EU leaders that will have the war in Ukraine as the centrepoint.

Biden has said upon arrival that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying "to break up NATO," adding that he calls for unity among the "major democracies of the world."

Joe Biden has said; "And the very thing that Putin is trying to do from the beginning, and I’ve been saying this since my days as vice-president of the United States, is to break up NATO, break up NATO – he’s rather face 30 independent countries, 30 united countries with the United States of America, that’s not a joke, I’m being deadly honest.”

"And so from the very beginning, my objective and I had a great partner in this was to see to it that we built total, complete unity among the major democracies of the world, I’m not joking about that, ” he has added.

European Union leaders are set to agree at a two-day summit which has started on Thursday to jointly buy gas as they seek to cut reliance on Russian fuels, with some saying they would not comply with Moscow's demand to buy oil and gas using roubles.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Europe's top gas supplier, has pushed already-high energy prices to records and has prompted the EU to pledge to slash reliance on Russian fossil fuels by hiking imports from other countries and quickly expanding renewable energy.

Moscow on Wednesday ,March 23, has said "unfriendly" countries, including EU member states, must start paying in roubles for Russian oil and gas, a demand some EU leaders have said was at odds with supply contracts.

Asked whether China will be discussed at the summit, Biden has answered : "We hope we’re going to get a chance to discuss China.”