‘We stand here together’: Biden makes historic visit to Ukraine

US President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to meet his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv on Monday, making his first trip to the wartime capital since Russia illegally annexed Crimea nine years ago.

While Biden’s presence provided practical value — he announced an aid package worth US$500 million — the historic visit primarily served as a signal of Western resolve to help Ukraine see the fight through, just days before the one-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country.

Speaking at Mariinsky Palace, the Ukrainian president’s residence, and flanked by a small circle of advisers, a press pool and security, Biden used the occasion to condemn the Russian invasion and provide a visual symbol that Kyiv is still standing nearly a full year since the Kremlin’s military siege began.

“[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war of conquest is failing,” Biden said. “One year later, the evidence is right here in this room. We stand here together.”

Biden also reflected on getting the call from Zelenskyy, on February 24 2022, that the Russian invasion was underway. “You said that you didn’t know when we’d be able to speak again,” Biden said. “That dark night, one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv … perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”

The aid package Biden announced is expected to shore up Ukraine’s deepening shortage of ammunition, including artillery rounds, Javelin anti-tank missiles, Howitzer artillery guns and air surveillance radars. Meanwhile, the US State Department is also set to announce further sanctions against Russian companies and people backstopping Russia’s war efforts.

Biden’s visit came after intensive and tightly held White House security deliberations, US officials said in a call with reporters after Biden left the country. The Biden administration held debates over the plans with only a small circle of agencies, including the Secret Service and the Defense Department, to plan the visit, US deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said. Biden made the final decision to travel to Kyiv on Friday after meeting with national security staff in the Oval Office.

Biden is last among major Western leaders to visit Kyiv, after French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The White House is keeping mum about how Biden got in and out of the country until his trip to Poland ends later this week. The Kyiv stopover comes on the heels of the three-day Munich Security Conference, where a US delegation led by Vice- President Kamala Harris — along with more than 50 members of Congress — sought to signal US resolve for supporting Ukraine.

Russia was notified about the trip for “deconfliction purposes”, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, though air raid sirens sounded across the country — including in the capital — as Biden’s motorcade streamed down the Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s central thoroughfare, and even as the US president stepped out to join Zelenskyy on St Michael’s Square, where he laid a wreath to fallen Ukrainian soldiers.

Though no US president has visited Ukraine since George W Bush travelled there in 2008, Biden told Zelenskyy as they walked up the stairs in Mariinsky Palace that it was his eighth trip to the country, after serving as the top US go-between to the Ukrainians during the Obama administration.

Before the visit, some Eastern European officials were worried that certain NATO member states were weakening in their resolve to aid Ukraine.

“I’m afraid, actually, that some of the countries in Europe are still thinking that this will all go away,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told Foreign Policy in an interview on Sunday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “‘I mean, you know, that’s OK, we’ll give [weapons] to Ukraine right now, but then, you know, we’ll go back to business as usual, and we don’t really have to spend that much on defence.’ And I think that’s the wrong assumption.”

Biden’s visit came as China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, journeyed to Moscow ahead of an expected speech from Putin marking a year since the start of his war in Ukraine.