KYIV, Ukraine
President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a striking gesture of solidarity that comes days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the country.
Biden spent more than five
hours in the Ukrainian capital, meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace, honoring
the country’s fallen soldiers and meeting with U.S. embassy staff in the
war-torn country. In his remarks with Zelenskyy, Biden recalled the fears
nearly a year ago that Russia’s invasion forces might quickly take city. “One
year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said, jamming his finger for emphasis on his
podium decorated with the U.S. and Ukrainian flags. “And Ukraine stands.
Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
The Ukraine visit comes at a
crucial moment in the war as Biden looks to keep allies unified in their
support for Ukraine as the war is expected to intensify with both sides
preparing for spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to speed up
delivery of pledged weapon systems and is calling
on the West to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine — something that Biden
to date has declined to do.
In Kyiv, Biden announced an
additional half-billion dollars in U.S. assistance — on top of the more than
$50 billion already provided — including 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.
Biden also got a short firsthand taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year, as air raids sirens howled over the capital just as he and Zelenskyy were exiting the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral, which they visited together. 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.
Biden’s mission with his visit
to Kyiv, which comes ahead of 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 the U.S. and European
allies to provide more advanced weaponry and to step up the pace of 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 visit marked an act of
defiance against Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his military
would swiftly overrun Kyiv within days. Biden 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.”
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 fiercely 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.
Biden warned that the “brutal
and unjust war” is far from won. “The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has
been extraordinarily high. And the sacrifices have been far too great,” Biden
said. “We know that there’ll be very difficult days and weeks and years ahead.
But Russia’s aim was to wipe Ukraine off the map. Putin’s war of conquest is
failing.”
“He’s counting on us not
sticking together,” Biden said of the Russian leader. ”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.”
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 pledged long-term
support for Ukraine, saying that “freedom is priceless. It’s worth fighting for
for as long as it takes.”
“And that’s how long we’re
going to be with you, Mr. President, for as long as it takes,” Biden promised.
Zelenskyy, speaking in English, responded: “We’ll do it.”
The Ukrainian leader, wearing
a black sweatshirt, as has become his wartime habit, said through an
interpreter that the “wide discussion” in their meeting “brings us closer to
the victory” — hopefully, he added, this year.
“Right now, in Ukraine, the
destiny of the international order ... is decided,” Zelenskyy said. He added
words of gratitude to Biden and to the American people for their support.
“Ukraine is grateful to you, Mr. President, to all the U.S. citizens, to all
those who cherish freedom just as we cherish them.”
Though Western surface-to-air
missile systems have bolstered Ukraine’s defensives, the visit marked the rare
occasion when a U.S. president has traveled to a conflict zone where the U.S.
or its allies did not have control over the airspace. The White House would not
go into specifics but said that “basic communication with the Russians occurred
to ensure deconfliction” shortly before Biden’s visit in an effort to avoid any
miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct
conflict.
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 pay a visit to 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 earlier this month.
Since early morning on Monday
many main streets and central blocks in Kyiv were cordoned 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. 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.’ The trip will be in -- to Warsaw. I didn’t want to make it sound like I
was alluding to a change to it.”
Biden quietly departed from
Joint Base Andrews near Washington shortly at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, making a stop
at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine. He arrived
in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday.
Other western leaders have
made the trip to Kyiv since the start of the war.
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.
This is Biden’s first visit to
a war zone as president. His recent predecessors, Donald Trump, Barack Obama
and George W. Bush, made surprise visits to Afghanistan and Iraq during their
presidencies to meet with U.S. troops and those countries’ leaders.
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