KYIV, Ukraine — President Biden swept unannounced into Ukraine on Monday to satisfy with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant show of Western solidarity with a rustic nonetheless combating what he referred to as “a brutal and unjust war” days earlier than the primary anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after assembly Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jabbing his finger for emphasis on his podium, in opposition to a backdrop of three flags from every nation, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
Biden spent greater than 5 hours within the Ukrainian capital, consulting with Zelenskyy on subsequent steps, honoring the nation’s fallen troopers and seeing U.S. embassy workers within the besieged nation. Altogether he was on Ukrainian territory for about 23 hours, touring by prepare from and again to Poland.
The go to got here at an important second: Biden is attempting to maintain allies unified of their assist for Ukraine because the conflict is predicted to accentuate with spring offensives. Zelenskyy is urgent allies to hurry up supply of promised weapon techniques and calling on the West to supply fighter jets — one thing that Biden has declined to do.
The U.S. president received a style of the phobia that Ukrainians have lived with for near a 12 months when air raids sirens howled simply as he and Zelenskyy wrapped up a go to to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral.
Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed as they laid two wreaths and held a second of silence on the Wall of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian troopers killed since 2014, the 12 months Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed combating erupted in japanese Ukraine.
The White House wouldn’t go into specifics, however nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan stated that it notified Moscow of Biden’s go to to Kyiv shortly earlier than his departure from Washington “for deconfliction purposes” in an effort to keep away from any miscalculation that would deliver the 2 nuclear-armed nations into direct battle.
In Kyiv, Biden introduced a further half-billion {dollars} in U.S. help — on prime of the greater than $50 billion already offered — for shells for howitzers, anti-tank missiles, air surveillance radars and different support however no new superior weaponry.
The bloodiest combating is, for the second, concentrated within the nation’s east, significantly across the metropolis of Bakhmut, the place Russian offensives are underway.
“The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high,” Biden stated. “And the sacrifices have been far too great.” But “Putin’s war of conquest is failing.”
Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews close to Washington at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, stopping at Ramstein Air Base in Germany earlier than making his approach into Ukraine on an in a single day prepare from Poland. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday. He departed after 1 p.m. by prepare again to Poland.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”