First lady offers a show of support
Biden’s trip follows path of predecessors in time of conflicts
UZHHOROD, Ukraine — First lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with counterpart Olena Zelenska to show U.S. support for the embattled nation as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions.
She became the latest high-profile American to enter Ukraine during the war, while Zalenska’s public appearance was her first since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24
“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” the first lady told Zelenska. “I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.”
Biden spent about two hours in Ukraine, traveling by vehicle to the town of Uzhhorod, about a 10-minute drive from a Slovakian border village where she had toured a border processing facility.
Zelenska thanked Biden for her “courageous act” and said, “We understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day — even today.”
The first ladies met at a school being used to temporarily house Ukrainian migrants.
Zalenska arrived first and waited in her black SUV until Biden arrived in similar fashion. The women stepped out of their vehicles and embraced, with Biden — who wore a wrist corsage for Mother’s Day — handing over a bouquet of flowers before they entered the school.
The women came together in a small classroom, sitting on either side of a wooden table and greeting each other in front of reporters before they met in private. Zelenska and her two children have been staying at an undisclosed location for their safety.
The visit allowed Biden to conduct the kind of personal diplomacy that her husband would like to do himself.
President Joe Biden said when he visited Poland in March that he was disappointed he could not cross the border and go into Ukraine to see conditions “firsthand” but that he was not allowed, likely due to security reasons.
The meeting came about after Jill Biden expressed interest in visiting the region, including the school where she and Zalenska met, and settled on the idea of spending Mother’s Day with Ukrainian moms, said Michael LaRosa, the first lady’s spokesperson.
After meeting privately for about a half-hour, the first ladies joined a group of children who live at the school in making tissue-paper bears to give as Mother’s Day gifts.
LaRosa described their conversation as “more of a personal mother-tomother exchange” and said Biden was interested in how Zalenska was coping “through that lens.”
He said Zalenska told Biden that she was able to hold her children’s hands every night even though she could not be with her husband.
The Bidens spoke by telephone afterward, he said.
Biden’s visit followed recent stops in the war-torn country by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress, and a joint trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Her visit was to western Ukraine; Russia is concentrating its military power in eastern Ukraine, and she was not in harm’s way.
Earlier, in the Slovakian border village of Vysne Nemecke, Biden toured its border processing facility, surveying operations set up by the United Nations and relief organizations to assist Ukrainians seeking refuge.
Biden attended a religious service in a tent set up as a chapel, where a priest intoned, “We pray for the people of Ukraine.”
And before that, at a school in Kosice, Biden offered support to Ukrainian mothers in Slovakia. She assured them that the “hearts of the American people” are behind them.
Biden is on a four-day visit to Eastern Europe to highlight U.S. support for Ukrainian refugees and for allied countries such as Romania and Slovakia that are providing a safe haven for them.
She spent Friday and Saturday in Romania, visiting with U.S. troops and meeting with Ukrainian refugee mothers and children.
With her trip, the American first lady followed the path of prior sitting first ladies who also traveled to war or conflict zones.
Eleanor Roosevelt visited servicemen abroad during World War II to help boost troop morale.
Pat Nixon joined President Richard Nixon on his 1969 trip to South Vietnam, becoming the first lady to visit a combat zone, according to the National First Ladies’ Library. She flew 18 miles from Saigon in an open helicopter, accompanied by U.S. Secret Service agents.
Hillary Clinton visited a combat zone, stopping in Bosnia in 1996.
Laura Bush visited Afghanistan twice, in 2005 and 2008, during the U.S.led war there.
Melania Trump accompanied President Donald Trump to Iraq in December 2018.