In addition to talking to European allies and Americans at home, Harris has a message intended for Putin: step back from the precipice of war or suffer the most severe sanctions ever levied against Russia. But as the brewing crisis gets more complicated by the day, Biden and other administration officials have offered increasingly dire warnings that the window for diplomacy is narrow.
Biden on Friday told reporters he believes Putin has decided to invade in the coming days, taking military action that could go far beyond the disputed Donbas region and include the capital of Kyiv.
As Harris makes a late-inning push to Putin to pull back, she aimed to hit hard on the argument that the US will emerge stronger from a conflict while Russia will emerge weaker, a Biden administration official said.
Ahead of the speech, Harris sought to rally allies.
In addition to her meeting with the Baltic leaders, the vice president on Friday met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, briefed a bipartisan group of US lawmakers attending the conference about the rapidly changing situation, and consulted with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was also in Munich.
Harris was scheduled to meet after her speech on Saturday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.