The end of the war remains in sight after Biden's dramatic 72 hours in Europe

Biden from Poland: "Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia" 2:20

(CNN) --

US President Joe Biden barely slept as he traveled in the dark to Kyiv earlier this week, sitting awake as his curtained train carriage crossed into the war zone that has shaped the country. much of his presidency.

Biden will leave Europe three days later after vociferously recommitting his support for Ukraine as it enters its second year of conflict, trying to brush aside doubts about the durability of US support and squarely blaming his counterpart in the Kremlin for pushing the continent into war.

The 72 hours Biden spent on the ground in Ukraine and Poland have been among the most momentous of his presidency, the culmination of both careful and top-secret planning by White House aides as well as the singular vision of the president, sustained for decades on the role of the United States in the world.

In conversations with advisers, foreign counterparts and even by phone with his wife during his visit, Biden said his trip this week was essential in showing the world that the United States will not waver in its support.

Yet as Air Force One returns to Washington, it's hard to ignore the two looming questions that Biden's visit failed to answer: how and when the war will end.

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“There will continue to be hard and very bitter days, victories and tragedies,” Biden said from the dramatically lit Warsaw Castle Gardens packed with thousands of flag-waving people.

“But Ukraine is prepared for the fight ahead.

And the United States, along with our allies and partners, will continue to stand with Ukraine in its defense."

Biden reproaches in Washington for his visit to Ukraine 3:24

Biden is not necessarily making the trip this week to provide a better picture of the end of the war, nor is he actively pushing the Ukrainians to the negotiating table with Russia.

In fact, Biden and his aides do not see that Russian President Vladimir Putin is looking for a compromise;

an impression that is only reinforced by Putin's belligerent and, in his opinion, delusional speech from Moscow on Tuesday.

Beneath Biden's promises of continued support for Ukraine, however, remains a lingering concern, shared with his European allies, that the war could reach a stalemate as each side sees small gains and losses with no clear trajectory.

What comes next

The massive influx of weapons, ammunition and armor sent by the United States and other countries in recent months was aimed, in large part, at helping Ukraine make battlefield gains that would strengthen its position at a hypothetical negotiating table with Russia.

However, there are concerns among some US and European officials about how Ukraine is using those resources, which have encouraged Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to focus on planning and executing a spring counteroffensive rather than fighting a battle on multiple fronts, some with less strategic importance than others.

In their closed-door conversation in Kyiv on Monday, Biden and Zelensky "spend time talking about the next few months, in terms of the battlefield, and what Ukraine will need in terms of capabilities to succeed on the battlefield," according to US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, one of the few aides who accompanied the president on his covert visit to Ukraine.

Tellingly, Sullivan said much of Biden's focus during the day trip to the war zone was spent planning how he would raise those issues with Zelensky when they sat down to talk in the gold-and-white Mariinsky Palace in Kyiv.

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“He was pretty focused on how he would approach his conversation with President Zelensky and partly how they would see each other over the course of 2023 and how they would try to come to a common understanding of what the goals are, where Ukraine is trying to get to. and how the United States can most effectively support them along with our allies and partners to get where they want to go,” he said.

Biden aides have subsequently remained silent on exactly how that discussion went, beyond saying there would be follow-up talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in the coming days and weeks.

Zelensky's insistent requests for more sophisticated weapons, including longer-range missiles and fighter jets, were almost certainly mentioned in the talks.

Some of Biden's other allies in the region have advocated sending such advanced weaponry as they seek to give Ukraine some sort of advantage in the ongoing war.

In previous meetings, Zelensky had also asked if the White House could dedicate some members of the US team to help develop a 10-point peace proposal that was first tabled last year.

However, that work is still ongoing and there was little talk of peace talks during Biden's trip this week.

US President Joe Biden (right) walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky upon arrival for a visit in Kyiv on February 20, 2023. (Credit: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images)

Biden and Putin prepare for a long conflict

Instead, the president focused his Warsaw remarks — a landmark speech he has been building for weeks — on announcing the continued resistance of Ukrainians and accusing Putin of a litany of atrocities.

“President Putin chose this war,” he declared.

“Every day that the war continues is his choice.

He could end the war with just a word."

A few hours earlier and several hundred kilometers away, Putin was giving his own important speech to the political and military elite, offering a dramatically different narrative of the war by accusing the West of turning Ukraine into a global confrontation.

The differences between the two speeches were marked, both in content and character.

Biden was introduced in Warsaw to a throbbing crowd;

Putin appeared to put some members of his audience to sleep with his one hour and 45 minute speech.

However, as divergent as the two men's speeches were, they seemed to agree that the war in Ukraine would not end anytime soon.

“We have to be honest and clear when looking at next year.

The defense of freedom is not the work of a day or a year.

It's always difficult, it's always important," Biden said.

• Biden ready for last symbolic clash with Putin after surprise trip to Ukraine

Biden aides said his comments were intended for a multitude of audiences: the embattled Ukrainian people, a Polish population that has borne much of the external burden, Russians who may be disillusioned by the failings of their leaders.

But, at least in the view of some on his team, what mattered most were listeners in the United States, thousands of miles from the front lines, with no direct interest in the war and, according to polls, with declining support for continued US assistance to Ukraine.

commitment questions at home

Biden's critics used his trip this week to paint him as inattentive to the needs of his own country, seizing on a toxic chemical spill caused by a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as an example of an American crisis that deserves your attention.

“Can we first acknowledge the fact that yes, Biden is in Poland, but he should be with those people in Ohio?”

asked Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, who is now seeking the Republican presidential nomination, during a campaign stop in Iowa. “You should always, always, during a time of crisis, be with your people right away."

After his speech on Tuesday in Warsaw, Biden spoke by phone from his hotel with the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania, along with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to discuss the situation.

“I reaffirmed my commitment to make sure they have everything they need,” she wrote in a caption accompanying an image of the call that was posted on Instagram.

But he also used the opportunity to criticize Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who is due to visit East Palestine on Wednesday, for losing regulations and making it harder to strengthen rail security.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda, center, meets with President Joe Biden, February 21, in Warsaw, Poland.

(Evan Vucci/AP)

Biden aides ultimately believe Republican members of Congress will continue to provide support for Ukraine, buoyed by stalwart backing from Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy despite protests from some of their party members.

Still, this week's criticism that Biden is too foreign-focused is revealing, particularly from a Republican like Haley, who had taken a more traditional view of America's role in the world.

Perhaps the most impassioned call this week for sustained American involvement in Europe came not from Biden himself, for whom the concept is innate, but from Poland's President Andrzej Duda, once a close Trump ally, who even proposed naming a base military "Fort Trump", in honor of his friend.

Initially viewed with skepticism by the Biden administration over its record on human rights and repeal of certain democratic norms, Duda has become America's top partner in Eastern Europe amid the raging war in Ukraine, overseeing an influx of refugees and turning Poland into a logistics hub for shipments of Western military assistance across the border.

Speaking in front of Biden on Tuesday, Duda placed this week's events within a century-old context of strong American presence on the continent.

“The United States…has repeatedly demonstrated its responsibility in European affairs during World War I, during World War II, during the Cold War.

Each time, they restored democratic rules.

Each time, the United States brought freedom back,” he said.

"All of us," he continued, "are looking at what they've done in the past, and we believe that the United States can maintain global order."

War in UkraineJoe BidenPoland