The White House had notified the Russian Government of President Joe Biden’s intention to visit Kiev hours before he departed for Ukraine.
This was made known by the U.S national security adviser, Jake Sullivan as details of the visit begin tagged “high-profile diplomatic coup” began to emerge.
“We did notify the Russians that President Biden will be traveling to Kyiv,” Sullivan said. “We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes, and because of the sensitive nature of those communications I won’t get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was, but I can confirm that we provided that notice.”
Jake Sullivan argued that it was the first time a US president had visited “the capital of the country at war where the United States military does not control the critical infrastructure.”
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According to accounts from Washington, the US informed Moscow to avoid any misunderstanding or misjudgement between the two nuclear-armed powers.
How the US president travelled into Ukraine is still unclear. New York Times quoting a US official suggested that Biden arrived in Kyiv after a transatlantic flight to Poland and crossing the border by train, travelling for nearly 10 hours to Kyiv in the same way as other US officials have in recent months.
Other foreign leaders who have come to Ukraine – including the former British prime minister Boris Johnson and the French President, Emmanuel Macron – have also come in by train from Poland, a route used by journalists, aid workers and diplomats with Ukraine’s civilian airspace closed for the past year.
During President Joe Biden’s publicly unannounced visit, air raid sirens rang out in Kiev, but there were no reports of Russian strikes, Reuters reported.
According to AFP, the alarm was heard when Biden and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, flanked by armed security, were exiting St Michael’s Cathedral where the leaders had a meeting. The siren did not cause any panic, the news agency said.
Biden’s trip to Ukraine is his first since Russia launched a military operation in the neighboring state nearly a year ago.
He promised to announce more weapons deliveries to Kiev and additional sanctions against Moscow, according to the White House.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
