Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to visit the United States on his first known trip abroad since Russia invaded his country in February.
Zelenskyy’s visit, set for Wednesday, marks the 300th day since Russia initiated its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
According to a senior Biden administration official, the visit will involve President Joe Biden welcoming Zelenskyy at the White House for bilateral meetings.
This is expected to be followed by a press conference, where Zelenskyy is expected to address members of the public.
Zelenskyy is also expected to later address a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill. The move is expected to demonstrate “strong bipartisan support for Ukraine,” the official said.
The trip to Washington is expected to take just several hours, after which Zelenskyy is expected to return to Kyiv.
“In the meeting tomorrow President Biden will have the opportunity with President Zelenskyy to have an in-depth strategic discussion on the way ahead, on the battlefield, on the capabilities and training that the U.S. and our allies will continue to provide to Ukraine, on the sanctions and export controls that we have imposed and will continue to tighten and reinforce and have quite significant cost on Russia’s economy and Russia’s defense [and] industrial base, and on the economic and energy sector assistance as well as humanitarian assistance [the United States is] providing to make life better for the people of Ukraine,” the senior administration official said.
Both leaders agreed that the trip would be “an important injection of momentum and sustenance to American and allied support [for Ukraine] for the months ahead and for as long as it takes,” the official said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday encouraged lawmakers to attend the session on Wednesday evening in person.
‘As Long as it Takes’
Zelenskyy’s visit also comes amid preparations by the Biden administration to send Patriot surface-to-air missiles to Kyiv to help defend against attacks on the country’s critical infrastructure.“We will train Ukrainian forces on how to operate the Patriot missile battery in a third country. This will take some time, but Ukrainian troops will take that training back to their country to operate this battery,” the Biden administration official said.
“This is about sending a message to Putin and sending a message to the world that America will be there for Ukraine for as long as it takes, and president Putin badly miscalculated the beginning of this conflict when he presumed that the Ukrainian people would yield and that NATO would be disunited. He was wrong on both those counts, he remains wrong about our staying power, and that’s what this visit would demonstrate,” the official stated.
Zelenskyy’s trip to the United States comes a day after he made an unannounced visit to the front-line city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s contested Donetsk province on Tuesday, where he praised Ukrainian troops for their resilience and handed out awards to soldiers.
In a video released by his office from Bakhmut, Zelenskyy on Monday was handed a Ukrainian flag and said he would bring it to U.S. leaders.
“The guys handed over our beautiful Ukrainian flag with their signatures for us to pass on,” Zelenskyy said in the video. “We are not in an easy situation. The enemy is increasing its army, and our people are braver and need more powerful weapons. We will pass it on from the boys to the Congress, to the president of the United States. We are grateful for their support, but it is not enough. It is a hint—it is not enough.”
White House spokesman John Kirby said at a briefing last week that the Biden administration has “no expectation” that fighting in the region will abate into the winter.
“No indications, certainly no expectations, that by year’s end, there will be an end of war,” he said. “None of the indicators are pointing in that direction.”
