By Evan Vucci, KYIV Ukraine
United States President, Joe
Biden, swept unannounced into Ukraine on Monday to meet with President,
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country
still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the first
anniversary of Russia’s invasion.US President Joe Biden, left, walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St. Michaels Golden-Domed Cathedral during an unannounced visit, in Kyiv, Ukraine
“One year later, Kyiv stands,”
Biden declared after meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jabbing his finger
for emphasis on his podium, against a backdrop of three flags from each
country, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans
stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
Biden spent
more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, consulting with
Zelenskyy on next steps, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and seeing U.S.
embassy staff in the besieged country. Altogether he was on Ukrainian territory
for about 23 hours, traveling by train from and back to Poland.
The visit came at a crucial
moment: Biden is trying
to keep allies unified in their support for Ukraine as the war is
expected to intensify with spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to
speed up delivery of promised weapon systems and calling on the West to provide
fighter jets — something that Biden has declined to do.
The U.S. president got a taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year when air raids sirens howled just as he and Zelenskyy wrapped up a visit to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral.
Looking solemn, they continued
unperturbed as they laid two wreaths and held a moment of silence at the Wall
of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014, the year Russia
annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed fighting erupted in
eastern Ukraine.
The White House would not go
into specifics, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that it
notified Moscow of Biden’s visit to Kyiv shortly before his departure from
Washington “for deconfliction purposes” in an effort to avoid any
miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct
conflict.
In Kyiv, Biden announced an
additional half-billion dollars in U.S. assistance — on top of the more than
$50 billion already provided — for shells for howitzers, anti-tank missiles,
air surveillance radars and other aid but no new advanced weaponry.
Ukraine has also been pushing
for battlefield systems that would allow its forces to strike Russian targets
that have been moved back from frontline areas, out of the range of HIMARS
missiles that have already been delivered. Zelenskyy said he and Biden spoke
about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine
even though it wasn’t supplied before.” But he did not detail any new
commitments.
“Our negotiations were very
fruitful,” Zelenskyy added. Sullivan would not detail any potential new
capabilities for Ukraine, but said there was a ”good discussion” of the
subject.
Biden’s mission with his visit
to Kyiv, which comes before a scheduled trip to Warsaw, Poland, is to underscore
that the United States is prepared to stick with Ukraine “as long as it takes”
to repel Russian forces even as public opinion polling suggests that U.S. and
allied support for providing weaponry and direct economic assistance has
started to soften. For Zelenskyy, the symbolism of having the U.S. president
stand side by side with him on Ukrainian land as the anniversary nears is no
small thing as he prods allies to provide more advanced weaponry and step up
delivery.
“I thought it was critical
that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in
the war,” Biden said.
Biden’s trip was a brazen
rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his military would
swiftly overrun Kyiv within days. Biden, a Democrat, recalled speaking with
Zelenskyy on the night of the invasion, saying, “That dark night one year ago,
the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Perhaps even
the end of Ukraine.”US President Joe Biden, left, walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral during an unannounced visit, in Kyiv, Ukraine
A year later, the Ukrainian
capital remains firmly in Ukrainian control. Although a semblance of normalcy
has returned to the city, regular air raid sirens and frequent missile and
killer-drone attacks against military and civilian infrastructure across the
country are a near-constant reminder that the
war is still raging. The bloodiest fighting is, for the moment,
concentrated in the country’s east, particularly around the city of Bakhmut,
where Russian offensives are underway.
At least six civilians have
been killed and 17 more have been wounded in Ukraine over the past 24 hours,
Ukraine’s presidential office reported. In the eastern Donetsk region, the
Russian army was using aviation to strike cities on the front line. A total of
15 cities and villages have been shelled over the past 24 hours, according to
the region’s Ukrainian Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. In the northeastern Kharkiv
region, cities near the border with Russia came under fire. A missile strike
hit Kupiansk, damaging a hospital, a plant and residential buildings.
“The cost that Ukraine has had
to bear has been extraordinarily high,” Biden said. “And the sacrifices have
been far too great.” But “Putin’s war of conquest is failing.”
“He’s counting on us not
sticking together,” Biden said. “He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think
he’s thinking that right now. God knows what he’s thinking, but I don’t think
he’s thinking that. But he’s just been plain wrong. Plain wrong.”
Signing a guest book at the
presidential palace, Biden praised Zelenskky and the Ukrainian people, closing
with “Slava Ukraini!” — ”Glory to Ukraine!”
The trip gave Biden an
opportunity to get a firsthand look at the devastation the Russian invasion has
caused on Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians have been
killed, millions of refugees have fled the war, and Ukraine has suffered tens
of billions of dollars of infrastructure damage.
Biden, wearing a blue suit and
at times his signature aviator sunglasses, told Zelenskyy the U.S. will stand
with him “for as long as it takes.” Zelenskyy responded in English: “We’ll do
it.”
The Ukrainian leader, wearing
a black sweatshirt, as has become his wartime habit, said through an
interpreter that Biden’s visit “brings us closer to the victory,” this year, he
hoped. He expressed gratitude to Americans and “all those who cherish freedom.”
It was rare for a U.S.
president to travel to a conflict zone where the U.S. or its allies did not
have control over the airspace.
The U.S. military does not
have a presence in Ukraine other than a small detachment of Marines guarding
the embassy in Kyiv, making Biden’s visit more complicated than other recent
visits by prior U.S. leaders to war zones.
While Biden was in Ukraine,
U.S. surveillance planes, including E-3 Sentry airborne radar and an electronic
RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, were keeping watch over Kyiv from Polish
airspace.
Speculation has been building
for weeks that Biden would visit Ukraine around the Feb. 24 anniversary of the
Russian invasion. But the White House repeatedly had said that no presidential
trip to Ukraine was planned, even after the Poland visit was announced.
Since early morning on Monday
many main streets and central blocks in Kyiv were cordoned off without any
official explanation. Later people started sharing videos of long motorcades of
cars driving along the streets where the access was restricted.
At the White House, planning
for Biden’s visit to Kyiv was tightly held — with a relatively small group of
aides briefed on the plans — because of security concerns. Sullivan said Biden
gave final approval for the trip, which had been in the works for months, on
Friday during an Oval Office meeting at which he was briefed on security plans
for the visit.
The president traveled with an
usually small entourage, with just a few senior aides and two journalists, to
maintain secrecy.
Asked by a reporter on Friday
if Biden might include stops beyond Poland, White House National Security
Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “Right now, the trip is going to be in
Warsaw.” Moments later — and without prompting — Kirby added, “I said ‘right
now.’”
Biden quietly departed from
Joint Base Andrews near Washington at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, stopping at Ramstein
Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine on an overnight train
from Poland. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday. He departed after 1 p.m.
by train back to Poland.
Until Monday, Biden’s failure
to visit was making him something of a standout among Ukraine’s partners in the
West, some of whom have made frequent visits to the Ukrainian capital. White
House officials had previously cited security concerns with keeping Biden from
making the trip, and Sullivan said Monday that the visit was only undertaken
once officials believed they had managed the risk to acceptable levels.
In June, French President
Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then Italian Prime Minister
Mario Draghi traveled together by night train to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kyiv in November shortly after
taking office.
No comments:
Post a Comment