The President of the United States, Joe Biden, visited the center of Kiev yesterday as part of an unannounced visit, promising to stand by Ukraine as long as necessary ahead of the first anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky walked together to the golden-domed cathedral as air raid sirens sounded.
"When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion almost a year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could last longer than us. He was bitterly mistaken," said Biden.
"The price that Ukraine has to pay is extremely high. The sacrifices so far have been too great... We know that difficult days, weeks and years are ahead".
In front of the cathedral, burned Russian tanks stood as a symbol of the failed Russian attack on the capital at the beginning of the invasion. Russian forces quickly reached the outskirts of Kiev, but were repulsed by unexpectedly strong resistance.
Biden arrived in Kiev after a 10-hour train journey from the Polish border, a route used by other international leaders before him, and after leaving Washington in secret with a small group of officials and reporters.
Speaking next to Zelensky at the Mariinsky Palace, Biden recalled fears a year ago that Russian forces would quickly seize the Ukrainian capital.
"A year later, Kiev is still standing," said Biden. "And Ukraine is standing. Democracy stands. Americans stand with you and the world stands with you”.
Since the beginning of the invasion, the Russian invasion has killed tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers on both sides, cities have been turned into ruins, and millions of refugees have left the country. Russia claims to have annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine, while the West has pledged tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Kiev.
The US president has pledged $500 million worth of additional weapons, including artillery ammunition, anti-tank systems and air defense radars, as well as tougher sanctions on Russia.
"This visit of the American president to Ukraine, the first in the last 15 years, is the most important visit in the entire history of US-Ukraine relations," said Zelensky.
Russia has been informed of Biden's arrival in Kiev, Washington and Moscow officials told Reuters, apparently in an effort to avoid the risk of an attack on Kiev while the US president is there. Biden spent more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, consulting with Zelensky about next steps, honoring the country's fallen soldiers and speaking with staff at the US Embassy.
A year later, Kiev is still standing. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. Americans stand with you and the world stands with you, said Biden
It is rare for a US president to travel to a war-torn zone where the US or its allies do not have airspace control, according to the AP agency. The US has no military presence in Ukraine except for a small detachment of Marines guarding the embassy in Kiev, making Biden's visit more complicated than other recent visits by US leaders to war zones.
The visit came a day before Putin's big speech today, during which he is to outline the goals for the second year of what he now calls a proxy war against the armed might of Washington and the NATO military alliance.
"Of course, the Kremlin will see this as new evidence that the United States is counting on Russia's strategic defeat and that the war itself has irreversibly turned into a war between Russia and the West," said Tatyana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst.
Biden's visit came while the heads of EU diplomacy in Brussels are discussing the joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine. "That is the most urgent issue. If we do not succeed in this, the outcome of the war is in danger," said leading EU diplomat Josep Borel, ahead of the meeting.
Winter Offensive
The anniversary has more than a symbolic meaning, and has become what the West sees as a key motivation for the deadliest phase of the war, as Moscow sends thousands of conscripts and mercenaries into the winter offensive.
Reuters points out that Russia has so far made only modest gains from attacks on frozen trenches on the eastern front. Kiev and the West see it as an effort to allow Putin to declare victory a year after Europe's biggest war since World War II began.
And Moscow received a signal of diplomatic support yesterday, expecting talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Washington has announced in recent days that it is concerned that Beijing could start supplying Russia with weapons. The spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, said that the US "is not in a position to demand anything from China".
One diplomatic source, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said Weng would discuss China's ideas for a political solution to the war. Ukraine claims that any diplomatic solution requires the withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory.
Russia is trying to establish full control over the two eastern provinces that make up the Ukrainian industrial region of Donbas. It launched attacks on locations from Kremina in the north to Vuledar in the south, and made the most progress around the mining town of Bahmut.
Kiev, which in the coming months expects a large influx of Western weapons for a planned counter-offensive, has lately been mostly defending itself on the battlefield, claiming that it is inflicting heavy losses on Russian forces.
Prigozhin: "They eat from golden plates"
The British Ministry of Defense said that among the Russian casualties were two elite brigades of thousands of marines who were probably "out of combat use" due to losses suffered in the failed attempt to storm Vuledar.
"Russian forces are likely to be under increased political pressure as the anniversary of the invasion approaches," the British ministry said in a statement, predicting that Moscow could announce the capture of Bakhmut regardless of the situation on the ground. "If Russia fails to achieve anything with the spring offensive, it will likely create additional tensions within the Russian leadership."
In a sign of such discontent, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin ally whose private army Wagner sent thousands of criminals from prison to the battlefields around Bakhmut, accused unnamed officials of sabotaging his forces by denying them weapons.
"Those who interfere with our efforts to win this war are absolutely, directly working for the enemy," he said, raising his voice and occasionally cursing in the seven-minute audio message. "Such officials "eat breakfast, lunch and dinner from golden plates" and send their relatives on vacation to Dubai," he added.
Western governments claim that Moscow lost thousands of men and dozens of armored vehicles in the assault on Vuledar across a minefield within range of Ukrainian artillery.
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