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MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania — First Lady Jill Biden arrived here Friday for the first stop of a four-day trip to Eastern Europe, serving as the uncharacteristically personal White House envoy as the United States seeks to extend its support for NATO – to reaffirm allies, particularly those closest to Russia’s war zone in Ukraine.
The trip marks Jill Biden’s most prominent diplomatic engagement since her husband became president, and visited a region still on the brink of Russia’s invasion and fears it could be next. During her trip, the First Lady scheduled a meeting with the Slovakian President, Romanian and Slovakian educators, and refugees who have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded more than two months ago.
Biden began her visit Friday with a stop at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Force Base, where she greeted US and NATO military officials and helped army commanders serve macaroni, cheese and potatoes to American troops stationed there.
A US serviceman introduced himself to the first lady as being from Pennsylvania, where Jill Biden grew up, adding that he attended the University of Delaware. “I’m a blue hen too!” she said, referring to the mascot of the university from which she received her doctorate. “My husband too.”
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The air force base, a Romanian facility that houses US and NATO troops, has nearly tripled to about 2,700 employees since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the first lady arrived with supplies in hand. Her team had received word that the base was running low on ketchup, so they brought about five gallons of it onto their plane, and Biden himself entered the dining area with two bottles of ketchup.
After cutting an American flag cake made to commemorate the First Lady’s visit, Biden joined Staff Sgt. Sharon Rogers to record video of the two telling their infant son Nathan “Night Catch.” ‘, read a children’s book. Biden had facilitated the reading through Joining Forces, her initiative to support military families, and United Through Reading, which connects military families with deployed military personnel through video recording and virtual book readings.
Past first ladies have also made foreign visits to support US troops stationed abroad, but Biden’s trip to the edge of a hot war zone comes at a particularly important moment in US foreign policy, with the Biden administration playing a central role in the military plays conflicts and global humanitarian aid. The invasion marks the moment of the greatest tension between the US and Russia since the end of the Cold War.
One of America’s main goals was to reassure its NATO members that it would protect them should the war spill over beyond Ukraine’s borders, and to stress to Moscow that, as opposed to indirect aid, it would respond directly to an attack on a Nato member would react it supplies Ukraine. Article 5 of the NATO treaty obliges the members to come to each other’s aid in the event of attacks.
President Biden visited Poland in March in his own effort to bring security to countries on NATO’s eastern flank. During that visit, he added a line at his discretion at the end of a speech suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin be impeached, saying, “For God’s sake, this man cannot stay in power.” The White House was quick to clarify that Biden did not endorse regime change policies.
Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have visited Ukraine themselves, and several heads of state – including the leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia – have visited Kyiv during the conflict. But so far, President Biden has not visited Ukraine as advisers privately cite the security challenges it would pose.
The United States has sent billions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid to the beleaguered country, and the president asked Congress last week for an additional $33 billion to help Ukraine against Russia, which is waging Europe’s biggest land war since World War II has begun .
This is Jill Biden’s second solo overseas trip since the beginning of the tenure. Last summer she led the US delegation to the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics. “It’s so important to the President and to me that the Ukrainian people know we stand by them,” Biden told reporters in Washington before boarding her flight to Europe.
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On Saturday, the First Lady will visit the US Embassy in Bucharest for a humanitarian briefing by United Nations agencies, humanitarian groups and the Romanian government. She will then meet Romania’s first lady, Carmen Iohannis, who, like Biden, will continue to teach English while her husband serves as head of state.
The first lady will also visit a public school in Bucharest that houses Ukrainian refugee students and participate in a listening session with the Romanian education minister.
She will travel to Kosice, Slovakia on Sunday to celebrate Mother’s Day with mothers and children before visiting the Slovak-Ukrainian border crossing at Vysne Nemecke. Biden will tour refugee centers and meet with aid workers and refugees. She will also visit a Greek Catholic chapel serving refugees, volunteers and first responders.
Millions of refugees have fled Ukraine as the Russian military wages a brutal war that Biden has declared a genocide. The US government has not officially adopted this term, which requires an extensive review process, but US officials assist the international community in ongoing war crimes investigations.
The First Lady will conclude her trip on Monday at the Presidential Palace in Bratislava, where she will meet Slovakian President Zuzana Caputova.
Ashley Biden, the daughter of the president and first lady, was originally scheduled to join her mother on the trip but called it off after being told of close contact with a person who tested positive for the coronavirus. She tested negative, but was advised by a White House doctor not to travel with the first lady, according to a White House spokesman.
Ashley Biden attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and several related parties this past weekend. A number of White House officials and journalists have contracted the virus since those gatherings.
Jill Biden will be joined for the Romanian portion of the trip by Mark Gitenstein, Ambassador to the European Union and a longtime aide and friend of Biden. Gitenstein served as US Ambassador to Romania during the Obama administration.
Biden will travel closer to the conflict than her husband did during his European trip in March when he was about 60 in Rzeszow, Poland kilometers from the Ukrainian border. But in recent weeks, a number of senior US officials have traveled to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The highest-ranking representative of the trip was the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who paid a surprise visit to Ukraine last Saturday. She and a half-dozen other lawmakers met with Zelensky and his top aides for three hours late Saturday, expressing American solidarity with Ukraine and seeking a first-hand assessment of conditions in hopes of unleashing President Biden’s massive new aid package for Ukraine to steer through Congress.
“Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is over,” Pelosi told Zelensky. “We are on a frontier of freedom, and your fight is a fight for all.”