Biden’s mission in Kyiv was to underscore that the United States is ready to stick to Ukraine “as long as it takes” to repel Russian forces.
KYIV, Ukraine — President Joe Biden made an unannounced go to Monday to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a gesture of solidarity that comes days earlier than the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the nation.
Biden delivered remarks and met with Zelensky at Mariinsky Palace to announce a further half-billion {dollars} in U.S. help and to reassure Ukraine of American and allied support because the battle continues.
“One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” Biden mentioned.
The Ukraine go to comes at a vital second within the battle as Biden seems to hold allies unified of their support for Ukraine because the battle is anticipated to intensify with each side making ready for spring offensives. Zelenskyy is urgent allies to pace up supply of pledged weapon methods and is looking on the West to ship fighter jets to Ukraine — one thing that Biden to date has declined to do.
Biden’s mission together with his go to to Kyiv — after which Warsaw — is to underscore that the United States is ready to stick to Ukraine “as long as it takes” to repel Russian forces whilst public opinion polling means that U.S. and allied support for offering weaponry and direct financial help has began to soften. For Zelenskyy, the symbolism of getting the U.S. president stand facet by facet with him on Ukrainian land because the anniversary nears isn’t any small factor as he prods the U.S. and European allies to present extra superior weaponry and to step up the tempo of supply.
The go to additionally offers Biden a chance to get a firsthand have a look at the devastation the Russian invasion has triggered on Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians have been killed, tens of millions of refugees have fled the battle, and Ukraine has suffered tens of billions of {dollars} of infrastructure harm.
The journey additionally marks an act of defiance against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his army would swiftly overrun Kyiv inside days. A yr later, the Ukrainian capital stands and a semblance of normalcy has returned to the town because the combating has concentrated within the nation’s east, punctuated by cruise missile and drone assaults against army and civilian infrastructure.
Biden additionally obtained a brief first-hand style of the phobia that Ukrainians have lived with for shut to a yr, as air raids sirens howled over the capital simply as he and Zelenskyy had been exiting a cathedral they visited collectively. Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed to stand in entrance of a wall honoring Ukrainian troopers killed since 2014.
Though Western surface-to-air missile methods have bolstered Ukraine’s defensives, the go to marked the uncommon event the place a U.S. president has traveled to a battle zone the place the U.S. or its allies didn’t have management over the airspace. It wasn’t instantly clear whether or not the U.S. had given advance discover of the journey to Moscow to keep away from any miscalculation that would carry the 2 nuclear-armed nations into direct battle.
The U.S. army doesn’t have a presence in Ukraine apart from a small detachment of Marines guarding the embassy in Kyiv, making Biden’s go to extra sophisticated than different current visits by prior U.S. leaders to battle zones.
Speculation has been constructing for weeks that Biden would pay a go to to Ukraine across the Feb. 24 anniversary of the Russian invasion. But the White House repeatedly had mentioned that no presidential journey to Ukraine was deliberate, even after the Poland go to was introduced earlier this month.
At the White House, planning for Biden’s go to to Kyiv was tightly held — with a comparatively small group of aides briefed on the plans — due to safety considerations.
Asked by a reporter on Friday if Biden may embody stops past Poland, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “Right now, the trip is going to be in Warsaw.” Moments later — and with out prompting — Kirby added, “I mentioned ‘right now.’ The journey might be in — to Warsaw. I didn’t need to make it sound like I used to be alluding to a change to it.
Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews close to Washington shortly after 4 a.m. on Sunday, making a cease at Ramstein Air Base in Germany earlier than making his means into Ukraine.
Other western leaders have made the journey to Kyiv for the reason that begin of the battle.
In June, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz after which Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled collectively by evening practice to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kyiv in November shortly after taking workplace.
This is Biden’s first go to to a battle zone as president. His current predecessors, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, made shock visits to Afghanistan and Iraq throughout their presidencies to meet with U.S. troops and people nations’ leaders.
Madhani and Miller reported from Washington.
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