US President Joe Biden made a shock go to to Kyiv and met along with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who he has pledged to support in preventing off Russia’s invasion because the battle nears the one-year mark.
Biden, who was initially slated to go to neighboring Poland this week, out of the blue appeared within the Ukrainian capital on Monday as stories of police sealing off foremost streets within the metropolis started to swell on native social media.
Whereas Biden was nonetheless in Kyiv, an enormous air raid alarm went off there and elsewhere throughout the nation — an every-day prevalence within the war-torn nation. There have been no rapid stories of any missile launches or explosions.
“When Putin launched his invasion almost one yr in the past, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided,” Biden stated on Twitter. “He thought he may outlast us. However he was useless unsuitable.”
President Biden in Kyiv. pic.twitter.com/ljBdSOKRf9— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 20, 2023
The Ukraine a part of Biden’s journey was deliberate in secret and solely revealed to reporters upon arrival. White Home aides for the previous week insisted that no such go to was deliberate, regardless of Biden’s proximity to the nation.
This the the primary time the US president has traveled to the nation since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. He is likely one of the final main allies to take action and lots of of Biden’s G-7 counterparts have already visited Kyiv over the previous yr. The final US president to go to Ukraine was George W. Bush in 2008.
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