On a covert expedition to visit Kyiv, the capital, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and a small group of advisers boarded an unmarked train with armed and tense Secret Service personnel. When the rest of the world was enjoying a date night at an Italian restaurant, Biden was still in Washington.
Biden secretly came to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and provide even more weapons for the nation’s defenders in an effort to show US resolve to assist Ukraine in defeating the Russian forces that invaded a year ago this week. During the visit, the fact that the two presidents walked to a memorial for fallen troops in broad daylight while an air raid siren went off made a mark that was quickly shared around the world.
After spending five hours in Kyiv, Biden declared, “I believed it was vital that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the battle.” In essence, he was addressing not just Russian President Vladimir Putin but also American citizens who were questioning his involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. He added, “It’s not just about freedom in Ukraine. “It has to do with general democratic freedom.
There is an opinion that most of the president’s entourage opposed the president’s desire to travel for most of the previous year because they believed it would be too dangerous. But, over a year after the Russian invasion, with the Ukrainian military performing significantly better than anticipated at first and other American and European leaders having travelled there, Biden and his team bet that he could enter and exit the country without incident.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, spoke to reporters over the phone as the train departed Kyiv for the return trip to Poland and said, “Of course there was still risk, and there is still risk in an initiative like this. “President Biden felt that it was critical to make this trip as we near the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the statement continued.
It was a long and strange voyage. Biden was not accustomed to viewing Ukraine in this way. As vice president, he travelled there six times—three times in a six-month period—arriving in an American jet and looking out the window in the sunshine to take in Kyiv from above. He was now entering clandestinely at night, arriving just after dawn.
Aides claimed that the trip had been planned for months as the threat assessments were considered by a select group of trusted officials from the White House, Pentagon, Secret Service, and intelligence agencies. According to an assistant, Biden prioritized others during discussions rather than himself.
The choice was finally made Friday, when Biden met with a few of his closest aides in the White House and conferred with others over the phone. He chose to leave.
Biden was previously scheduled to visit Poland for the celebration. Presidents frequently add the visits to the conclusion of existing journeys when they make covert stops in ambiguous regions. In order to keep the information a secret, the White House chose to present it first in this instance.
The Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui and The Associated Press’ Evan Vucci were called to the White House on Friday and given a confidentiality oath. They were instructed to wait for more details in an email with the subject line, “Arrival instructions for the golf tournament.”
Even subsequent security-sensitive presidential excursions, where the customary complement of 13 reporters and photographers was taken, marked a drastic change from the two-person journalism pool. Yet, that wouldn’t be the only peculiar aspect of the journey.
No president has been this close to combat since Abraham Lincoln rode to the front lines outside of Washington to observe engagements in Northern Virginia during the Civil War. Franklin D. Roosevelt went to North Africa; Lyndon B. Johnson visited Vietnam; George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all visited Iraq and Afghanistan.
But in each of those instances, they travelled to nations or regions that were governed by American forces. In this scenario, neither the U.S. military would be in Ukraine nor would it be in charge of airspace. During the tour, American military aircraft were photographed hovering close to the Ukrainian border in eastern Poland, but officials claimed they never entered Ukrainian airspace out of respect for Biden’s position against direct American engagement.
The two journalists brought their phones to Andrews early on Sunday; they would not receive them back for 24 hours. They were transferred to an Air Force C-32, which is more frequently used for domestic flights to airports with shorter runways, rather than the customary blue-and-white Boeing 747 known as Air Force One when the president is on board. The shades were drawn since the jet was parked in the shadows close to a hangar.
Biden arrived at about 4 a.m., and the flight across the Atlantic departed at 4:15 a.m. Sullivan, Jen O’Malley Dillon, the deputy chief of staff, and Annie Tomasini, the director of Oval Office operations, were among the few staffers who were there with Biden. At 5:13 p.m. local time, the aircraft landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. After refuelling there with its shades down, it took off again at 6:29 p.m. It subsequently travelled to Poland’s Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, where it landed at 7:57 o’clock.
Biden was transported in a procession of approximately 20 vehicles along a relatively empty highway for nearly an hour without sirens to the little city of Przemyl, where he was then transferred to the railway station where hundreds of Ukrainian immigrants have been arriving over the past year. When the passengers arrived at 9:15 p.m., they discovered there were few people there and locked the stalls.
The procession arrived next to a purple train, with a few cars painted blue and a yellow stripe running down the centre to represent the Ukrainian flag.Presidents almost never travel outside of Secret Service or American military vehicles, but flying into Ukraine is not thought to be secure.
At 9:37 p.m., the train departed the station without fanfare, and at around 10:00 p.m., it crossed the border into Ukraine.
The White House lied to reporters in Washington because it was so determined to keep the information a secret. Four hours after Biden crossed the Ukrainian border, his office in Washington released a public itinerary that said the president was still in the capital and wouldn’t leave for Europe until Monday evening. This was not true.
According to a senior official who wanted to remain anonymous when recalling the journey, Biden struggled to fall asleep while wearing casual clothing throughout the lengthy train voyage. The president spent the trip reflecting on his prior visits to Kyiv, notably his words on his farewell visit in 2017 and an address to the Ukrainian parliament. As he read a letter about Kyiv’s history from the beginning, he thought about how he felt about the city.
In a conversation with aides, Biden recalled his phone chat with Zelenskyy on February 24 of last year, just as Russia’s invasion got underway. Biden was amazed to learn that Zelensky had informed him at the time that he was unsure of when they would speak again. They were about to meet in person in Kyiv a year later, Biden told aides.
At eight in the morning local time, the train arrived at Kyiv-Pasazhyrsky station after an all-night journey. The platform had been made clear.Biden stepped off the plane on a sunny day with blue skies and a crisp chill in the air. He was now dressed in a blue suit and a tie with Ukrainian flag colours. Bridget A. Brink, the US ambassador, met him.
”It’s good to be back in Kiev,” Biden said.
He spent his five hours in the city meeting with Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace, going with him to place a wreath at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery’s Wall of Memorial, and stopping by the U.S. Embassy to speak with its officials.
At 1:10 p.m., he left for the same train station and returned. The senior official reported that Biden gave a number of instructions on military, economic, and diplomatic fronts to aid Ukraine during the drawn-out train journey back to Poland. He was shaken by the meetings he had just had. He had trouble falling asleep once more.
At 8:45 p.m. local time, he arrived at the Przemyl Gówny station. He then returned to the airport to catch a flight to Warsaw, where he would give a speech on Tuesday. His prior stay was still on his mind, according to aides.
He had said, “Kyiv has captured a portion of my heart, I must say,” before departing.
