Biden left the Ukrainian capital early on Monday afternoon, following an unannounced five-hour visit that represented a major show of US support for Ukraine as it battles the Russian invasion, Polish website wp.pl reported.
While in Kyiv the US president met with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky and promised USD 500 million worth of new military aid to Ukraine.
Biden's secret trip to Ukraine
Biden had arrived in Ukraine after a 10-hour journey by train from Poland, where he travelled by Air Force One early on Monday, according to The New York Times.
He chose to meet with Zelensky in Kyiv, although US officials had proposed various “safer” options, including a meeting at the Polish-Ukrainian border or in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The US and Ukrainian presidents previously met at the White House in December.
Military support, energy needs, humanitarian aid
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that Biden and Zelensky "spent time talking about the coming months in terms of the battlefield, what Ukraine needs, the capabilities to be able to succeed on the battlefield."
Sullivan said, as quoted by Britain’s The Guardian newspaper: “They talked about Ukraine’s needs in terms of energy, infrastructure, economic support, humanitarian needs, and they also talked about the political side of this, including the upcoming UN General Assembly session on Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s peace formula and Ukraine’s efforts to rally international support for a just and sustainable and durable peace built on the principles of the UN Charter, chief among them sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Sullivan revealed that Washington had notified Moscow of Biden's secret visit to Ukraine hours before the president’s departure in an attempt “to avoid sparking conflict when he was in Kyiv,” CBS News reported.
During a two-day visit to Poland on Tuesday and Wednesday, Biden is expected to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, deliver a major speech in the gardens of Warsaw’s Royal Castle nearly a year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and attend a summit of the Bucharest Nine (B9) group of eastern-flank NATO allies, according to officials.
Monday is day 362 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: IAR, PAP, Polsat News, wp.pl, The New York Times, The Guardian, CBS News