Darkened plane, silent overnight train: Biden's surprise visit to Kyiv
US President Joe Biden (right) and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden made a surprise trip to Kyiv ahead of the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. PHOTO | HANDOUT | UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE | AFP
American President Joe Biden's surprise visit on Monday morning to war-torn Kyiv began in the dead of night at a military airport hangar outside Washington USA.
At 4am (1200 EAT) Sunday, unbeknown to world media bodies, Washington government officials or American voters, the 80-year-old Democrat boarded an Air Force Boeing 757, known as a C-32.
The plane was parked well away from where Biden would usually board with shade on every window pulled down.
Fifteen minutes later Biden, security personnel, a medical team, close advisors and two journalists sworn to secrecy took off en route to Kyiv.
The US president is perhaps the most constantly scrutinized person on the planet.
Members of the press follow Biden wherever he goes, whether to church or international summits. Every word he says in public is recorded, transcribed and published.
Although in this case, the usual pool of reporters for foreign trips consisting of 13 journalists from radio, TV, photo and written press organizations, was cut to one photographer and one writer.
The reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui from The Wall Street Journal, revealed that once allowed by the White House to publish details, she and the photographer were summoned to Joint Base Andrews, a US military facility outside Washington at 2:15 am.
Their phones were confiscated until Biden finally arrived in the Ukrainian capital.
They flew for about seven hours from Washington to the US military base in Ramstein, Germany where they landed for refuelling. Here too, the window shades stayed down and they did not leave the plane.
The next flight was to Poland, landing in Rzeszow–Jasionka Airport. This may be a Polish airport, but since the Ukraine war it has also become an international hub for the US-led effort to arm the Ukrainians, funnelling billions of dollars of weaponry and ammunition.
'Good to be back'
Up to this point, Siddiqui and the photographer from the Associated Press Evan Vucci, had not seen Biden himself. That didn't change at the airport or when they got into SUV motorcade.
Reporters traveling with Biden often went in motorcades, but something was very different about this one. No sirens or anything else to announce that the US president was headed to Przemysl Glowny, a Polish train station near the Ukrainian border.
It was already 9:15 pm local time when they arrived at train station. The journalists were told to board, still without laying eyes on Biden.
Running a route that had brought untold quantities of aid into Ukraine and untold numbers of Ukrainian civilians fleeing the other way, the train had about eight cars. Most of the people aboard, Siddiqui said, were "heavy security."
Biden is an avowed train buff.
He loves recounting his years of commuting by rail between Washington and home in Delaware when he was a senator, bringing up two young sons after their mother died in a car accident. One of his nicknames is "Amtrak Joe."
This 10-hour trip into Ukraine, however, was unlike any taken by a modern US president journeying into an active war zone where, unlike presidential visits to Afghanistan or Iraq, US troops are not the ones providing security.
The train rolled into Kyiv with the rising sun.
Biden, who had last visited the Ukrainian capital when he was vice president under Barack Obama disembarked at about 8:07 am.
