White House officials confirmed on Monday that they gave Russia advance notice of President Biden’s visit to Kyiv to avoid a military clash between the US and Russia.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters that they notified Russia that President Biden would visit Ukraine. He made that announcement shortly after the President boarded a train back to Poland from the Ukrainian capital on Monday.
According to Sullivan, Russian officials were informed about Biden’s visit a few hours before he left for Ukraine for “deconfliction purposes.” However, the public remained unaware of the President’s visit for longer.
Sullivan declined to reveal Russia’s response to their heads-up or the administration’s exact message to the Kremlin, citing the sensitive nature of the communications.
Biden’s first trip to the war-torn country since the Russia-Ukraine war started a year ago was carried out secretly. The President gave final approval for the visit on Friday, February 17.
Biden departed from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at around 4 am on Sunday and landed in Germany before proceeding to Rzeszow, Poland. He took his motorcade for about an hour to Przemysl Glowny, where he took an overnight train to Kyiv.
He arrived at Ukraine’s capital about ten and a half hours after he departed from Maryland.
World leaders visiting President Volodymyr Zelensky use trains to avoid accidentally getting shot down while in a plane.
President Biden traveled with two journalists, Sabrina Siddiqui, a Wall Street Journal reporter, and Evan Vucci, a photographer with the Associated Press.
Tamara Keith, the White House Correspondents Association President, and an NPR reporter, pushed for more journalists to cover the President’s Ukraine trip, an effort that saw 11 journalists joining the President’s Kyiv entourage.
As a show of his support for Ukraine before the war’s first anniversary, Biden spent five hours in Kyiv. He made several stops, driven in an SUV instead of a limousine, without the Ukrainian public knowing he was there, at first. The secret held until people started to realize what was going on, but he was able to get back to Poland safely.
Speaking at the Mariinsky Palace, Biden pledged $460 million in military aid to the warring country, saying that Kyiv and Ukraine were still standing a year into the war.
Biden assured Zelensky that the US and the world stand with Ukraine.