The secret journey began nearly 20 hours earlier when – in a deviation from Biden’s public schedule – the president arrived at Andrews Air Force base at about 4 a.m. EST Sunday.
He boarded Air Force One with two reporters and a small group of White House officials including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon.
“The trip from Washington was a trip filled with real anticipation that this was an important moment, and that the president was rising to the moment and felt he had an important mission to undertake, and he was eager to do it,” Sullivan said.
It is unclear whether Biden traveled directly to Ukraine or stopped first in Poland, and the White House has not identified the mode of transportation that took Biden to Kyiv.
“I thought it was critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the war,” Biden said at 9 a.m. local time alongside Ukranian President Volodymr Zelenskyy, who had greeted him 30 minutes earlier at Mariinksy Palace, the president’s official residence.
Donning Ukraine’s colors with a blue and yellow striped tie, Biden spent about five hours in the war-torn country before departing for Poland, which White House officials insisted last week would be Biden’s only destination during his three-day swing to Europe.
