President Joe Biden paid an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting with Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium flanked by U.S. and Ukrainian flags, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
They're not saying, but I'm going to bet that there was an AWACS flying close to the border with fighters ready to intervene. It's kind of too bad that the Navy retired the Phoenix. The Secret Service probably had a cow over this trip.
The last three presidents made trips to war zones, but those trips were to bases under American control and where the enemies were rather short of sophisticated weaponry. That's by no means the case with this trip. Sure, there's a lot of symbolism in this trip (or any presidential trip), but that's part of the job.
No doubt that The TOFF would have flown to Moscow to visit his lien-holder.
No bet. The story itself mentions the Russians were notified just before the visit for “deconfliction” purposes. It also nots at least an AWACS and a Rivet Joint were airborne over Poland for monitoring. My question would be what fighters were assigned…with only Block 40 Fighting Falcons from Italy or Block 50’s from Germany based “close”, and some Strike Eagles and Turkey II’s in the UK, I’d be willing to bet some Raptors made the trip with AF-1, along with a few tankers. I also wouldn’t bet against a Patriot unit being sent over there for handover to the Ukrainians early, and perhaps manned temporarily by U.S. troops.
ReplyDeleteI read that the secret service did in fact have a cow over this trip, and that they "advised against" it.
ReplyDelete-Doug in Sugar Pine
That took some tentacular fortification ... some balls
ReplyDeleteAnother train ride by a world leader.
ReplyDeleteTen Bears, BIG balls: Biden TOLD Russia he was going at the last minute
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/20/how-biden-pulled-off-a-visit-to-an-active-ukrainian-war-zone
"“We did notify the Russians that President Biden will be travelling 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.”
The US informed Moscow to avoid any misunderstanding or misjudgment between the two nuclear-armed powers, according to accounts from Washington.
Biden crossed into Ukraine at about 10pm on Sunday night, having quietly boarded a train in the Polish town of Przemyśl. His motorcade pulled up alongside his carriage allowing him to board unseen. His security detail took up most of the train’s eight carriages."
More details in the link....the article speaks of a MIG-30 entering Ukrainian airspace during the visit...Wikipedia shows no such MIG...29, 33 & 35, but no 30