The United States warned Russia about its president Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine before he left, for “de-escalation purposes,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told the press.
“We actually warned the Russians that President Biden was going to travel to Kiev. We did that a few hours before he left,” Jake Sullivan said.
The White House adviser, who also went to Kiev, indicated that “because of the sensitive nature of this communication” he did not want to go into detail about the exact way they responded or the precise nature of the message. sent to the US.
The President of the United States arrived in Kiev on Monday morning for an exceptional visit to Ukraine – the first since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022.
The trip was decided on Friday, after a meeting between Biden and his main group of security experts, and was organized in great secrecy, with the president leaving an air base near Washington early Sunday morning.
As reported by US television station CNN, Friday’s decision ended several months of work within the Department of Homeland Security, along with members of the White House military cabinet and several senior Pentagon secret service officials.
This work team continuously briefed President Biden on assessments of potential threats while the visit was underway, including on Ukrainian territory, where he spent just six hours, before taking a train to Poland.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield stated at the time that she could not reveal how the US president had traveled to the Ukrainian capital while “the journey was not quite completed”. difficult”.
According to Jake Sullivan, the visit required “additional logistical and operational security measures”, at the level of US standards, to “conduct an inherently risky operation in a manner that the risk was manageable”.
“Obviously, the risk remained (…) in an initiative like this, but President Biden felt it was important to make this journey,” the adviser underlined.
Only two journalists were allowed to accompany the US head of state.
Biden’s visit to Kiev – the first visit by a US president to Ukraine since 2008 – followed that of several European leaders to the Ukrainian capital and that of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington last December.
There, Biden announced another $500 million (about $500 million) in aid to Ukraine, a new package of long-range weapons and yet another type of weapon that “had not been provided before,” and also mentioned future new sanctions against Ukraine. Russian elites and companies helping “Russian war machine”.
To date, the United States has sent more than $30 billion (approximately €27 billion) in military and financial aid to Ukraine, while pressuring its NATO partners (Organization of the Atlantic Treaty – Northern, Western Defense Bloc) to shipment of armaments, including the long-awaited Leopard 2 tanks.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine almost a year ago has so far led to the flight of more than 14 million people – 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 8 million to European countries – according to the most recent data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
At the moment, at least 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The Russian invasion – justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russian security – was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending arms to Ukraine and impose political and economic sanctions on Russia.
The UN presented itself as confirmed since the start of the war, which today has entered its 362nd day, 7,199 civilian deaths and 11,756 wounded, underlining that these numbers are far below the real ones.
Source: DN
