The final decision will be made on Friday: After a small discussion, US President Joe Biden decides that he will travel to Kiev to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shortly before the first anniversary of the Russian war of aggression.
The possible visit had been prepared for months: in Washington, two journalists from Wall Street Journal and the AP news agency informed: “The president is going to Kiev.” The two are allowed to travel as the only reporters and they described after Biden’s arrival in Poland after the visit how the most powerful man in the world was taken unnoticed to a war zone that is not controlled by the US army.
On Friday, journalists will be sworn to absolute secrecy and will wait for an email with detailed instructions. The subject will be: “Arrival instructions for the golf tourney.” On Saturday, Sabrina Siddiqui and Evan Vucci were told they should be at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington by 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Upon arrival, their phones are taken away – for more than 24 hours. They board the Boeing C-32 the Air Force, a smaller plane that Biden often uses for domestic travel. At 4.15 a.m. the plane takes off for Europe. The call sign is not “Air Force One” as usual, but “SAM060”, for “Special Air Mission”.
Biden’s plane is refueled at Ramstein Air Force Base
At 5:13 p.m. German time, the machine lands on its truly special mission at the Ramstein Air Force Base to refuel. The window flaps remain closed the whole time and after 75 minutes we continue. The two journalists do not see their famous fellow travelers. After an hour and a half it lands Air Force One in Poland at the airport in Rzeszów. From there, a convoy of dark SUVs and minivans roared east for just under an hour – towards the Ukrainian border.
In Przemyśl, Biden and his delegation board a Ukrainian passenger train at the train station at 9:15 p.m. From there, all Western visitors leave for Kiev – this is where the joint journey of Chancellor Olaf Scholz with French President Macron and Italian Mario Draghi began in June. At 9:37 p.m. the train started to move – Siddiqui and Vucci had still not seen the US President.
Loud New York Times Biden hardly sleeps on the train, instead he reads files and remembers the seven previous visits to the Ukrainian capital. He was there for the last time in 2017, when he was still Vice President of Barack Obama. There are several stops during the ten-hour train journey – at least once more security guards get on.
“It’s good to be back in Kiev.”
Upon arrival in Kiev shortly after 8 a.m., it is cold but the sun is shining – and Biden is received at the train station by US Ambassador Bridget Brink. “It’s good to be back in Kiev,” says the US President. He gets into another column of armored vehicles, minivans and SUVs – and drives to the official residence of the Ukrainian president. These security measures have not gone unnoticed, with rumors spreading in Kiev of a very powerful visitor.
At Zelenskiy’s side, Biden then promises another aid package worth half a billion US dollars – including howitzers, artillery ammunition and other anti-tank missiles of the type javelin. We drive through the city in a white SUV: the two presidents take a walk around St. Michael’s Monastery, then we go to the US Embassy in Kiev. There the reporters get their mobile phones back.
After five hours the return journey begins. At 1:10 p.m. local time, Biden was already on the train back to Poland. About an hour later, his security adviser, Jake Sullivan, dials into a conference call with journalists and gives some details. In order to avoid incidents, the US government informed Moscow about Biden’s trip. This is “historic and unprecedented” – and “not a celebration, but an affirmation” of the US commitment to Ukraine and “the resilience of the Ukrainian people”. Biden decided the message was worth the risk, Sullivan says.
Biden arrives in Poland around 8 p.m., the train arrives in Przemyśl around 8.45 p.m. From there it goes back to the airport and straight on to Warsaw. In the Polish capital, where Biden will give a speech in front of the Warsaw Royal Castle this Tuesday, he will arrive at 11:25 p.m. Everything is back to normal there: “The Beast” is waiting on the runway – that’s what the armored Cadillac sedans with 1000 hp engines are called, in which US presidents usually travel all over the world.