Biden was offered several options where he could meet with Vladimir Zelensky.
US President Joseph Biden was offered a meeting with the head of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky both outside Ukraine and in a city safer than Kiev, but the head of the United States refused.
This is reported by Rolling Stone, citing information from a senior White House official.
“Despite White House claims that Biden is 'not going' to cross Ukraine during his trip to Poland, planning to cross the Polish-Ukrainian border began more than a month ago after Biden told his team that he would publicly express solidarity with the United States and Ukraine, which is at war with Russia. From a political standpoint, this trip should have taken place,” a senior White House official told Rolling Stone.
Over the past year, First Lady Jill Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and others in The US government made a trip to the war-torn country, while the president himself has not done so until now, the source adds.
However, on Monday, February 20, Biden, along with Zelensky, visited the center of the Ukrainian capital and announced additional deliveries weapons.
“When Putin launched the invasion almost a year ago, he considered Ukraine weak and the West divided. He thought he could outlive us. But he was deeply wrong,” Biden said in a statement.
The US President was offered a meeting with the head of Ukraine on the Polish-Ukrainian border and in Lvov, which is considered relatively safe.
This was reported to Rolling Stone by an unnamed senior White House official with direct knowledge of the matter.
One idea was for Biden and Zelensky to meet at an undisclosed location on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Another was to hold the meeting in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine that has been hit by Russian airstrikes several times since the start of an all-out war but remains relatively safe. message.
Joe Biden, however, has chosen Kiev, the capital of Ukraine's resolve after the occupiers tried and failed to take it at the start of last year's all-out war.
In addition, on Monday On Feb. 20, President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, demonstrating defiant Western solidarity with a country that is still waging what he called a “brutal and unjust war” days later. on the anniversary of the Russian invasion
The head of the United States was traveling by train from Poland to Ukraine. On the morning of February 21, Biden will already arrive in Warsaw, where he will stay for two days.
On February 20, against the background of Joe Biden's arrival in Kiev, an American military plane is circling on the border of Ukraine and Poland.
