JOE: KYIV STANDS
Walks streets of Ukraine capital with Zelenskyy on surprise visit
President Biden met Monday with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and walked the streets of Kyiv during a surprise visit to Ukraine, his first since Russia invaded the country a year ago.
The unannounced meeting lasted more than five hours and took place only a day after the White House shot down rumors that he would stop in Ukraine on the way to a scheduled trip Tuesday to nearby Poland.
During his visit to the Ukrainian capital, Biden voiced support for the embattled country and announced an additional $500 million in military aid.
“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said after visiting Mariinsky Palace, the official residence of the Ukrainian president. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The
Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
In a show of defiance, Biden and Zelenskyy strolled on chilly Kyiv streets a year after Russian troops expected to sweep into the capital.
In a small taste of the danger that Ukrainians live with on a daily basis, air raids sirens howled just as Biden and Zelenskyy wrapped up a visit to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral.
Signing a guest book at the presidential palace, Biden praised Zelenskky and the Ukrainian people, closing with “Slava Ukraini!” — “Glory to Ukraine!”
Biden wore a blue suit and donned his signature aviator sunglasses in the bright winter sun. The Ukrainian leader was dressed in his trademark dark sweatshirt and military-style padded jacket.
The trip is Biden’s first to a war zone since he began his presidency more than two years ago. The U.S. only informed Ukraine of Biden’s visit shortly before he left for Europe.
The White House also notified Russian authorities, citing “deconfliction purposes.”
It’s very unusual for a president to visit a conflict zone in which the U.S. does not control the airspace, although American spy planes and drones kept watch from the airspace of neighboring Poland.
The U.S. has already funneled $50 billion to defend Ukraine. The new aid included no new advanced weaponry, but Zelenskyy said he and Biden discussed “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before.”
“Our negotiations were very fruitful,” said Zelenskyy, who has urged allies to provide more advanced weaponry — and more quickly.
Friday marks one year since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor and one-time Soviet republic.
Biden stressed the importance of demonstrating his country’s unwavering support of
Ukraine during the “brutal and unjust war,” and said Russian President Vladimir Putin was counting on the nations not sticking together.
“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.”
The war is now locked in a stalemate along the long front line in southern and eastern Ukraine.
Russia is expected to launch an offensive in the Donbas region, but most military analysts doubt that its poorly trained and equipped forces can achieve a breakthrough.
Ukraine hopes that recently acquired high-tech armor and tanks can help it break through Russian lines and eventually push the invading forces out of the swaths of Ukraine that they occupy.
In Russia, lawmakers and analysts who
are close to Putin downplayed the importance of Biden’s visit, with some even noting the fact that the U.S. gave Moscow advance notice as evidence that Biden needed the Kremlin’s de facto permission to visit.
“[The trip is] yet one more piece of evidence that ... the war itself has irrevocably turned into a war between Russia and the West,” said political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya.
But nationalist pro-Kremlin bloggers, who often prod the government into more hawkish stands, howled that the visit amounted to a historic humiliation.
They pointed out that it was clearly designed to upstage a planned speech by Putin on Tuesday.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if [Biden] is brought to Bakhmut as well,” wrote Igor Girkin, a former Russian commander, referring to a battleground city in eastern Ukraine where fighting is raging. “AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO HIM.”