Uzhhorod, Ukraine –
Jill Biden paid an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with First Lady Olena Zelenska to show US support for the warring nation as Russia pushes its punitive war in the eastern regions.
Biden traveled under cover of secrecy, becoming the last high-ranking American to enter Ukraine during its 10-week conflict with Russia.
“I wanted to come to Mother’s Day,” the first lady of the United States told Zelenska. “I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war must stop and that this war was brutal and that the people of the United States are with the people of Ukraine.
Biden spent about two hours in Ukraine, traveling by car to the city of Uzhgorod, about a 10-minute drive from a Slovak border village, where she had toured a border processing facility.
Zelenska thanked Biden for her “brave deed” and said: “We understand what it takes for the first lady of the United States to come here during a war, when hostilities take place every day, where air sirens happen every day – even today.”
The two first ladies gathered in a small classroom, sat across from each other at a table, and greeted each other in front of reporters before meeting in private. Zelenska and her children were in an undiscovered place for their safety.
The school they met has become a temporary home for Ukrainian migrants from other parts of the country.
The visit allowed Biden to conduct the kind of personal diplomacy that her husband would like to do on his own.
President Joe Biden, who received a call from his wife while she was in the motorcade after visiting Uzhgorod, said during a visit to Poland in March that he was disappointed he could not visit Ukraine to see the conditions “from the first hand “, but that it was not allowed, probably for security reasons. As early as last week, the White House said the president “would like to visit,” but has no plans to do so.
The meeting took place after the two first ladies exchanged correspondence in recent weeks, according to US officials, who declined to give further details because they were not authorized to discuss the ladies’ personal communications.
When she arrived at the school, Biden, who was wearing a Mother’s Day corsage, a gift from her husband, hugged Zelenska and gave her a bouquet. After their personal meeting, the two joined a group of children who live at the school to make teddy bears out of tissue paper for Mother’s Day gifts.
Biden’s visit follows recent stops in the war-torn House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress, as well as a joint trip by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to meet with President Vladimir Zelensky. in Kyiv.
Her visit was limited to western Ukraine; Russia is concentrating its military power in eastern Ukraine, and it was not in danger. The same day after Biden’s visit, a Russian bomb destroyed a school in eastern Ukraine that housed about 90 people in its basement, with dozens fearing deaths. Also Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Ukraine to meet with the president and “reaffirm Canada’s unwavering support for the Ukrainian people,” according to his office.
Earlier in the Slovak border village of Vyshne Nemetske, she toured the border processing facility, examining operations set up by the UN and other humanitarian organizations to help Ukrainians seeking asylum. Biden attended a religious service in a tent set up as a chapel, where a priest sang, “We pray for the people of Ukraine.”
And before that, Biden met in Kosice and offered support to Ukrainian mothers in Slovakia who had been displaced by the Russian war. She assured them that “the hearts of the American people” are behind them.
At the city’s bus station, which is now a 24-hour refugee treatment center, Biden found himself in a lengthy conversation with a Ukrainian woman who said she was trying to explain the war to her three children because she herself could not understand it.
“I can’t explain because I don’t know myself and I’m a teacher,” said Victory Kutocha, who had hugged her 7-year-old daughter, Yuli, to Biden.
At one point, Kutocha asked, “Why?” seems to be seeking an explanation for Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine on February 24.
“It’s so hard to understand,” the first lady replied.
The 24-hour facility is one of six refugee centers in Slovakia, providing an average of 300 to 350 people a day with food, showers, clothing, emergency accommodation and other services, according to information provided by the White House.
Biden also attended a Slovak public school that accepted displaced students.
Slovak and Ukrainian mothers gathered at the school for Mother’s Day event while their children made crafts to give them as gifts.
Biden walked from table to table, meeting the mothers and children. She told some of the women that she wanted to come and “say that the hearts of the American people are with the mothers of Ukraine.”
“I just wanted to come and show you our support,” she said before leaving for Vysne Nemecke.
In recent weeks, border crossings have averaged less than 2,000 a day, less than more than 10,000 a day since Russia’s invasion on February 24, with much of this flow being daily cross-border traffic.
Biden is on a four-day visit to Eastern Europe to highlight US support for Ukrainian refugees and for allies such as Romania and Slovakia, which provide them with safe havens.
She spent Friday and Saturday in Romania, visiting US troops and meeting with Ukrainian mothers and refugee children.
With her trip, the American first lady followed in the footsteps of previous sitting first ladies, who also traveled to military or conflict zones.
Eleanor Roosevelt visited servicemen abroad during World War II to help boost troop morale. Pat Nixon joined President Richard Nixon during his trip to South Vietnam in 1969, becoming the first first lady to visit a battle zone, according to the National Library of First Ladies. She flew 18 miles from Saigon in an open helicopter, accompanied by US secret service agents.
Hillary Clinton visited a battle zone, stopping in Bosnia in 1996. Four years after the September 11 terrorist attacks and the US-led war in Afghanistan, Laura Bush went to Kabul in 2005 and Melania Trump accompanied President Donald Trump. in Iraq in December 2018
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