Leaders of four NATO nations visit Kyiv – but Biden stays home
The leaders of four NATO nations within spitting distance of Russia visited Kyiv Wednesday in a display of solidarity, defiance and support for Ukraine.
The presidents of Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Estonia traveled by train to the capital, where they met with President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss military assistance, humanitarian aid, and war crimes investigations.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda tweeted a photo of himself and the three other leaders beside a Ukrainian passenger train.
“Heading to Kyiv with a strong message of political support and military assistance,” he wrote.
The visit comes just days after a surprise visit to the battered capital by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Johnson secretly made his way to Ukraine Saturday, and took a walking tour of Kyiv’s abandoned streets with Zelensky.
The absence of President Biden from the list of visiting high-profile world leaders drew criticism from Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Monday. Iryna Vereshchuck told CNN Monday that Biden should have visited Ukraine during his European trip last month.
“It would have been a huge symbolic step to show that he is not afraid of the world’s rapist, of the world’s butcher, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Vereshchuck said. “This would have been a symbolic and historic step, but it didn’t happen. It would have been a symbolic step to come to Ukraine and it would have been powerful, but it needs to go also hand-in-hand with the action to stop oil and gas, to stop this flow of dollars and euros to Russia to fund their aggression, and to stop this rape of Europe.”
The White House has said Biden has “no plans” to visit Kyiv in the near future.
“President Biden has been to Kyiv before. He looks forward to going to Kyiv again,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “But we are not currently planning a trip.”
Last month, Biden traveled to Rzeszow, Poland, about 60 miles from the border with Ukraine, to receive a briefing on the refugee crisis caused by Russia’s invasion — but got no closer to the frontier.
“I’m here in Poland to see firsthand the humanitarian crisis and quite frankly, part of my disappointment is that I can’t see it firsthand like I have in other places,” Biden said during his visit, adding that “they will not let me, understandably, I guess, cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine.”
It was not clear to whom Biden was referring when he said “they,” and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that she was “not going to get into private considerations internally on that front.”
With Post wires
