US Vice President Joseph Biden attended church on Saturday afternoon before taking his wife to dinner at a quaint Washington restaurant. Giving little away about his surprise visit to Kyiv.
US Vice President Joseph Biden attended church on Saturday afternoon before taking his wife to dinner at a quaint Washington restaurant, giving little away about his surprise visit to Kyiv.
Yet by early Sunday morning, he had already boarded a US military jet flying across the Atlantic, beginning the first part of a secretive journey to the Ukrainian capital that had taken months of careful planning by a small group of advisors.
On Presidents’ Day, a national holiday. Videos showing Biden wearing his signature aviator sunglasses walked beside the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In the cold while air raid sirens wailed in the background woke up the nation.
“Kyiv has captured a part of my heart,” he said standing alongside Zelenskyy while announcing $460 million in additional.
This story of how Biden entered a conflict area is based on statements made on the record by US authorities. After the president had left the nation’s capital. He left Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington at 4 am, travelled via Poland and Ukraine on a 10-hour train ride. Finally arrived in Kyiv on Monday morning after a five-hour stopover.
The war is at a turning point; people are growing weary of the possibility of a protracted struggle. It might put pressure on Ukraine to start peace negotiations. Two months after Zelenskyy’s own unexpected trip to Washington in late December. Biden personally arrived to provide the Ukrainian leader the psychological boost he needed.
Biden finally decided to leave during a meeting in the Oval Office on Friday. Very few individuals were aware of it, not even inside his own White House and Pentagon.
Biden came to the conclusion that the danger of visiting a nation at war was worthwhile in order to convey. The message that the US remained committed to Ukraine.