The riskiest journey of the Biden presidency

The White House denied until the last moment that it was underway.

When Joe Biden had already taken off for Europe hours earlier on Sunday, the presidential press office was still circulating a plan for the day in which the US leader was still happily in the White House and was only going to fly to Poland in Monday night.

But the president's surprise trip to kyiv to commemorate the anniversary of the war had been planned for months in the greatest of secrecy.

“Only a handful of people” from the intelligence services, the Pentagon, the White House and other departments related to presidential security were involved in planning the trip, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer revealed Monday. , once Biden had already completed his six-hour whirlwind visit and was out of Ukraine.

“The president was fully informed about each step of the plan and all the possible complications,” added Finer, one of that handful of insiders on the trip.

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It was Biden personally who made the final decision to travel that same Friday, just 48 hours before departure, after a confidential meeting in the Oval Office with members of his national security team, some of them connected by telephone.

He was determined, according to his advisers, to face the possible risk in exchange for conveying to the Ukrainian citizens shaken by a year of war - and to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin - a message of unwavering support "for as long as it takes lack".

The preparations, according to the director of Communications of the White House, Kate Bedingfield, were especially complicated, even more so than those of the trips of other presidents such as Barack Obama or George W. Bush to conflict zones such as Iraq or Afghanistan.

In those countries, the US military controlled the national infrastructures, which simplified operations.

“Unlike previous visits, the United States obviously does not have a military presence on the ground,” she explained, and her Embassy in kyiv has a very small staff.

The operation, in coordination with the Ukrainian government, "required an operational and logistical security effort by professionals from across the United States government to take on something dangerous and make it have a manageable level of risk," explained the security adviser. White House National, Jake Sullivan, one of the very few officials who accompanied Biden on his visit.

On Friday the White House was still publicly insisting that no trip to Ukraine was scheduled.

"No," answered the spokesman for the National Security Council, John Kirby, when asked about that possibility at a press conference.

Officially, the president had only scheduled his departure on the night of Monday the 20th to land in Warsaw, the only declared leg of his trip, early on Tuesday.

But on Sunday at 4:15 in the morning (10:15 Spanish peninsular time) the presidential plane, Air Force One, departed from Andrews Air Base, on the outskirts of Washington.

On board, in addition to Biden, only a small group of most trusted officials: his deputy chief of staff, Jen O'Malley Dillon;

Jake Sullivan and Oval Office Director of Operations Annie Tomasini.

Next to them, two journalists.

Both were required to hand over their cell phones until the public announcement of the presidential arrival in kyiv.

The White House alerted Moscow to the trip, albeit only a few hours before takeoff, to "avoid conflict," Sullivan revealed.

The senior official did not want to specify what the Russian response was or the exact content of the US message, due to the "sensitive nature" of those communications.

Biden landed in Poland, and from there he traveled by train to Kiev, a ten-hour trip that has already been made famous by other international leaders who have traveled to the capital of the country at war, including the French Emmanuel Macron or the British Boris Johnson.

When he arrived at eight in the morning on Monday, he was wearing a blue suit and a tie with the light blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag.

"It's good to be back in kyiv," he smiled as he greeted the US ambassador to the Ukrainian capital, Bridget Brink, who had come to receive him.

He immediately went to the presidential palace, where he was received by the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, and his wife, Olena.

“I think it is vital that there be no question, absolutely no question, about America's support for Ukraine in this war,” Biden declared.

At two in the afternoon, six hours after his arrival, the White House confirmed that he had left the Ukraine.

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