National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the White House warned the Kremlin before President Joe Biden made a surprise trip to Kiev on Monday.
“We informed the Russians that President Biden was going to Kiev. We did this a few hours before he left for conflict resolution reasons,” Sullivan told reporters on a call Monday after Biden left the Ukrainian capital.
Biden secretly left Washington at 4:15 a.m. Sunday, flew to Poland and then took a 10-hour train ride so he could stand side-by-side with Ukrainian President Zelensky four days before the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Some MAGA-leaning Republicans at home grumbled that Biden made the trip instead of visiting East Palestine, Ohio, where a toxic train derailment took place earlier this month.
Sullivan gave no details of what the US had specifically told the Russians.
“And because of the sensitive nature of these communications, I won’t go into detail on how they responded or what the exact nature of our message was, but I can confirm that we provided that notification,” he said on the call.
President Joe Biden (center) poses for a photo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) and Olena Zelenska (left) outside the Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv, Ukraine Monday
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters that the Kremlin had been briefed on Biden’s trips to Kiev before he arrived. Russian President Vladimir Putin is photographed on Thursday
President Joe Biden (left) walks alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) in front of the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral during Monday’s surprise trip to Kiev
The White House was also secretive about Biden’s means of travel.
The New York Times reported that Biden crossed the border by train.
What’s more, White House officials didn’t even want to say what plane the president flew to Europe on.
Air Force One is the callsign of the President’s plane — and so it doesn’t specifically mean that the President traveled on the recognizable blue-and-white Boeing 747s that he would normally take with him on international trips.
“We’re going to wait to really go into detail about the different elements of the trip and the modalities, transportation and things like that until we basically get the green light from security to be able to share all of that,” Sullivan said.
“We will share it, but we just want to make sure that we do so as soon as we feel it is operationally safe,” he added.
An American military plane was parked at Warsaw Airport on Sunday afternoon.
President Joe Biden (left) and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) at the Mariinsky Palace during Monday’s trip
President Joe Biden (left) and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) walk past St. Mikhailovsky’s Cathedral in Kiev on Monday
President Joe Biden (left) signs a guest book at the Mariinsky Palace Monday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (right) looks on
Even within the ranks of the American government, the trip was a closely guarded secret.
Those involved in the planning came from the White House, the Office of the Chief of Staff, the National Security Council, the White House Military Office, the Pentagon, the Secret Service, and the intelligence agencies.
“Only a handful of people in each of these buildings were involved in operational security planning,” Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer told reporters.
Travel was complicated by the lack of American military personnel in Ukraine and only a sparse US Embassy staff.
“The United States also has a very small embassy area compared to the massive operations in Afghanistan and Iraq during presidential war visits to those locations,” Finer said.
Additionally, the president was traveling with an “extremely small” group, Finer said, which consisted of a handful of his closest associates, including Sullivan, a small medical team, security guards and two reporters.
The two reporters – a newspaper reporter and a photographer – had their phones taken away upon departure.
The rest of Biden’s press pool – which normally consists of around a dozen journalists – was left in Washington.
For days, the White House had publicly stated that the trip to mark the anniversary of the Ukraine war would be solely to Warsaw, Poland, where the president was due to meet Polish President Andrzej Duda and the leaders of the Bucharest Nine Nations.
This part of the trip is expected to continue as planned.
American lawmakers woke up to the news that Biden was finally visiting Ukraine, with a number of Republicans more politically aligned with former President Donald Trump shaming the Democratic president for not going to Ohio first.
“When our border is in crisis, Joe Biden goes home to nap in Delaware. As Ohio burns with toxic chemicals, Biden’s admin says everything is fine. So I’m not surprised that Biden is abandoning America in favor of Ukraine on President’s Day,” Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted. “From the beginning of his presidency, he has abandoned America’s interests. You can keep him!’
Other Republicans accused Biden of caring more about Ukraine’s border than the US-Mexico border.
“Breathtaking that President Biden can show up in Ukraine to make sure her border is secure but can’t do the same for America,” tweeted Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania.