US President Joe Biden said his country would remain with Ukraine “as long as it takes” during a surprise visit to Kyiv, just days ahead of the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This visit of the U.S. president to Ukraine, the first for 15 years, is the most important visit in the entire history of Ukraine-U.S. relations,” Zelenskyy said.
Biden traveled to Ukraine’s capital by overnight train from Poland, arriving after roughly 10 hours at 8 a.m. on Monday, before returning there the same way, leaving just after 1 p.m. (1100 GMT), according to a White Pool report by a Wall Street Journal reporter. He arrived at the Polish border city of Przemysl that evening.
Washington has expressed concern that China may be considering supplying weapons to Russia, with Beijing’s top diplomat due to visit Moscow shortly.
US notified Moscow hours before Kyiv visit
The United States gave a heads up to Moscow “hours” ahead of President Joe Biden’s surprise trip to Kyiv on Monday to avoid any chance of conflict, a senior White House aide said.
“We did notify the Russians that President Biden will be traveling to Kyiv. We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters. “Because of the sensitive nature of those communications, I won’t get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was.”
