KYIV: President of the United States – Joe Biden – on Monday (February 20), made a sudden and secret visit to Kyiv – the capital of war torn Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden made the secret trip to Kyiv – the besieged capital of Ukraine –arriving after an hour-long train ride from the border of Poland.
This visit of Biden to Kyiv is a demonstration of his administration’s resolve in the face of Russia’s yearlong invasion of the country.
The visit to Kyiv was conducted covertly because of security concerns, with Biden departing Washington without notice after he and his wife had a rare dinner out at a restaurant on Saturday night.
Biden had already been publicly scheduled to arrive in Warsaw on Tuesday morning for a two-day visit, and officials had repeatedly denied that there were any other plans they could announce about a trip to Ukraine while he was there.
Indeed, the White House on Sunday night issued a public schedule for Monday showing the president still in Washington and leaving in the evening for Warsaw, when in fact he was already half a world away.
Biden met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital on his first visit to the country since the start of the conflict.
In a statement, US President Biden said his visit to Kyiv would “reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity”.
“When Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong,” he said.