Tag: Kyiv

Kyiv accuses Orthodox Church leader of justifying Russia’s invasion

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Ukrainian investigators are searching the home of Metropolitan Pavel Lebed, an Orthodox Church leader, who they accuse of justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and inciting inter-religious hatred.
Ukraine’s security service (SBU) confirmed on Saturday that Pavel, who runs Ukraine’s most important monastery, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, is suspected of violating the country’s criminal code.
Pavel “in his public speeches repeatedly insulted the religious feelings of Ukrainians, humiliated the views of believers of other denominations and tried to form hostile sentiments towards them,” said the SBU, which also published what it alleges are phone intercepts from Pavel’s sermons. He also “made statements that justified or denied the actions of the aggressor country,” according to the service.
“Today, the enemy is trying to use the church environment to promote its propaganda and split Ukrainian society,” the SBU’s head Vasyl Malyuk said.
Pavel’s branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was previously under control of Moscow clergy, but declared its independence in May last year.
But Kyiv argues that the church needs to be closed down due to its pre-war ties to Moscow and has been trying to evict Pavel and his fellow worshippers from his monastery.
Pavel has denied the allegations, arguing that Kyiv has no legal grounds for the eviction, according to the BBC. During a court hearing on Saturday, he said he has “never been on the side of aggression,” describing his current status as “house arrest.”
The SBU has arrested dozens of clerics, accusing them of collaboration with Russia. Last year, the service raided the Lavra monastery and other buildings belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The church denies that there is evidence to support the charges.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

April 1, 2023
Kyiv and Berlin slam Putin’s plan to station nuclear weapons in Belarus

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Officials in Kyiv and Berlin condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus.
The Kremlin “took Belarus as a nuclear hostage,” Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted on Sunday.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, added that the move was a violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, something that Putin denied in his announcement on Saturday. Podolyak tweeted that Putin “is afraid of losing & all he can do is scare [us] with tactics.”
Putin said on Saturday that Russia would construct a storage facility for tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by July. He likened the plans to the U.S. stationing its nuclear weapons in Europe, and said Russia would retain control of the nuclear arms stationed in Belarus.
“The United States has been doing this for decades,” Putin was quoted as saying. “They deployed their tactical nuclear weapons long ago on the territories of their allies, NATO countries, in Europe,” he said.
Saturday evening, the German Federal Foreign Office told national media that the decision was akin to a “further attempt at nuclear intimidation.”
“The comparison made by President Putin on the nuclear participation of NATO is misleading and cannot serve to justify the step announced by Russia,” the Foreign Office was quoted as saying.
The Biden administration in the U.S. said it would “monitor the implications” of Putin’s announcement but would not adjust its nuclear weapons strategy.

“We have not seen any reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear posture nor any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said. “We remain committed to the collective defense of the NATO alliance.”
Russia used Belarus as a staging ground to send troops into Ukraine for Putin’s invasion. And Moscow and Minsk have maintained close military ties as the Kremlin continues its war on Ukraine.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
‘Ukraine doesn’t have any time to waste’: U.S. races to prepare Kyiv for spring offensive

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As spring approaches, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about Ukraine’s dwindling supply of ammunition, air defenses and experienced soldiers. Moscow and Kyiv are continuing to throw bodies into the fight for a southeastern city the U.S. does not consider strategically important. But the Pentagon says that regardless of Kyiv’s battlefield strategy, the U.S. wants Ukraine’s soldiers to have the weapons they need to keep fighting.
Russia has spent months pummeling the country with missiles, seeking not only to cause destruction but also deplete Ukraine’s air defense stocks. Ukrainian soldiers have described acute shortages of basic ammunition, including mortar rounds and artillery shells. And upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian forces have died in the year-long war, U.S. officials estimate, including the most experienced soldiers.
Many of these losses are taking place in Bakhmut, where both sides are suffering massive casualties. Led by soldiers from the mercenary Wagner Group, Russia has laid siege to the southeastern city for nine months, reducing it to ruins. Ukrainian forces have refused to yield, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisting that defending Bakhmut is key to holding other eastern cities.
“The Russians clearly are wanting to press forward to the boundaries of Donetsk all of the way to the west, and to do that they need to get hold of Bakhmut and the road network that goes past it,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Institute.
But Austin recently told reporters that Bakhmut is “more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value.”
Instead, U.S. officials are more focused on getting Ukraine ready for a major spring offensive to retake territory, which they expect to begin by May. Hundreds of Western tanks and armored vehicles, including for the first time eight armored vehicles that can launch bridges and allow troops to cross rivers, are en route to Ukraine for the offensive. The U.S. and European partners are also flowing massive amounts of ammunition and 155mm shells, which Ukraine has identified as its most urgent need.
U.S. aid packages “going back four or five months have been geared toward what Ukraine needs for this counteroffensive,” said one U.S. official, who was granted anonymity due to the administration’s ground rules.
While U.S. officials are careful not to appear to tell Kyiv how to fight the war, Pentagon leaders said Wednesday that the equipment and training being provided will enable Ukraine to win the war — where and when it chooses to do so.

“There is a significant ongoing effort to build up the Ukrainian military in terms of equipment, munitions and training in a variety of countries in order to enable Ukraine to defend itself,” said Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley.
“The increased Ukrainian capability will allow the Ukrainian leadership to develop and execute a variety of options in the future, to achieve their objectives and bring this war to a successful conclusion,” Milley said.
More than 600 Ukrainians in February completed a five-week training program in Germany that included basic skills such as marksmanship, along with medical training and instruction on combined arms maneuver with U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armored personnel carriers. Those forces are now back on the battlefield, and a second batch of hundreds of additional soldiers are now going through the program.
Behind closed doors, U.S. officials have been pressing Kyiv to conserve artillery shells and fire in a more targeted fashion. This is a particular concern in Bakhmut, where both sides are expending munitions at a rapid pace.
“Some in the Pentagon think that they are burning up ammunition too fast,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Forces Europe. “Excuse me, they’re in a massive fight for the survival of their country against an enemy that has huge advantages in artillery ammunition and is not letting up.”
Kyiv has not yet settled on a strategy, U.S. officials said, but it has essentially two options: push south through Kherson into Crimea, or move east from its northern position and then south, cutting off the Russian land bridge. The first option is not realistic, officials said, as Russia has dug in its defenses on the east side of the Dnipro River, and Ukraine does not have the manpower for a successful amphibious operation against that kind of force. The second is more likely, officials say.
In addition to sending weapons and providing training, senior American generals hosted Ukrainian military officials in Wiesbaden, Germany this month for a set of tabletop exercises to help Kyiv wargame the next phase of the war.
President Joe Biden last month ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets, and senior U.S. officials have repeatedly said the aircrafts are not in the cards right now. But officials are working on other ways to boost the Ukrainian air force, including attempting to mount advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles on its Soviet-era MiG-29s, and assessing the skills of Ukrainian pilots.
Two Ukrainian pilots recently wrapped up an assessment at an Air National Guard base in Tucson, Arizona, for U.S. military instructors to assess what training they need to better employ the aircrafts and capabilities the West has already provided, including bombs, missiles and guidance kits. The program included simulator flights, but the pilots did not fly in American aircrafts, officials said.
An effort to mount AMRAAMs on the MiGs, if it proves successful, could also significantly increase the ability of Ukraine’s fighter pilots to take out Russian missiles, officials said.
As quickly as Ukraine is running out of munitions, Russia’s human and equipment losses are even more acute, forcing Moscow to appeal to rogue nations such as Iran for additional weapons.
“Russia remains isolated, their military stocks are rapidly depleting, the soldiers are demoralized, untrained unmotivated conscripts in convicts and their leadership is failing them,” Milley said.
Publicly, senior officials say it is up to Zelenskyy when and where to launch a new offensive, and whether to remain in Bakhmut or reposition his forces.
“President Zelensky is fighting this fight, and he will make the calls on what’s important and what’s not,” Austin said. But he noted that: “We’re generating combat power, to a degree that we believe that it will provide them opportunities to change the dynamics on the battlefield, at some point going forward, whatever point that is.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 16, 2023
Biden’s triumphant visit to Kyiv gives way to a sober war reality

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“It may well be that 2023 is the best chance Ukraine has,” said Liana Fix, a fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Biden can say the U.S. will support Ukraine ‘as long as it takes’ if he can keep getting Congress to approve funds, and the idea with that rhetoric is to send a clear message to Moscow. But there’s also a U.S. election in 2024, and a German election in 2025, which will make things far more complicated.”
Scholz’s meeting with Biden — scheduled to be just one hour — will largely highlight both the transformation of Europe and the challenges for the U.S. president to hold it together to resist Russia. Two days after Russia’s invasion, Scholz vowed in his “Zeitenwende” speech that Germany, long wary of militarization in the postwar WWII era, would take steps to boost defense spending. It was an immediate recognition of how Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had shattered the existing security architecture of Europe.
Scholz quickly canceled the Nord Stream 2 Baltic gas pipeline project, and Germany has committed more than 6 billion euros in aid to Ukraine since the war began. But Wolfgang Schmidt, Scholz’s chief of staff, acknowledged this week that a budget crunch was likely to prevent Berlin from fulfilling last year’s promise of an increased defense spending.
“We must be honest about this,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “Ambition and reality are diverging.”
Zelenskyy has long called out Germany, by far Europe’s biggest economy, to do more in supplying weapons to the front, including Leopard II tanks. Reflecting the frustration some in the alliance have had with Scholz, national security adviser Jake Sullivan made the candid admission on a Sunday talk show that the U.S. only authorized sending its Abrams tanks — which could take up to a year to see the battlefield — to push Germany to send its own vehicles, which can be deployed much sooner.
“There’s no one strong leader that’s really holding the Europeans together. It’s Biden who’s doing it,” said Rachel Rizzo, senior fellow at Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. “And without the emergence of Germany as a strong leading actor, we are going to start to see more fissures within the alliance.”
Part of Biden’s task is managing the emerging divide in Europe over how to end the war. Some voices on the continent are urging peace talks now, to limit the human and economic toll. Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have urged Zelenskyy to consider negotiations with Putin to bring the fighting to a close. And Macron last month said that it “has never been the position of France” to “crush Russia,” suggesting that it would be acceptable for Putin to remain in power and Russia to retain its military power if the fighting stopped.
Others in Europe hold a decidedly different view. After Biden’s triumphant secret visit to Kyiv last week, he traveled to Warsaw where he delivered a rousing speech about European unity. But the next day, in a closed-door meeting, Biden had to deliver a reminder to the Bucharest Nine — a group of Eastern European countries closest to Russia’s border — that the goal of the war was not to end Putin’s regime, according to officials not authorized to discuss private conversations. Biden himself once declared that Putin “cannot remain in power” but his administration has since backed away from the claim.

The Bucharest Nine, or B9, has most acutely felt Putin’s threat and has suggested that the only way to prevent an eventual Russian invasion of their own countries is to cripple Moscow for good. That has placed Biden in a delicate spot: a president who has sent an enormous military stockpile to Kyiv along with pledges to stand with Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” with disagreements over what offramps to take and amid growing Republican resistance for open-ended U.S. involvement in the conflict.
“We still need a strategy. Where are we going to be a year from now? I don’t think that Biden or anyone on his team has articulated that,” said Brett Bruen, a former State Department official in the Obama administration. “We’re past days of dancing around the sensitivities of one country or one political leader. We have got to either give Ukraine what it is going to take to win or we need to rethink the game plan.”
Faced with these political realities, Biden has leaned more on audacious set pieces to keep support for Ukraine intact. His trip to Kyiv — which aides believe helped inject momentum into the war effort — came after months of Biden wanting to travel there.
Very few White House officials, even senior ones, were read in on the plan, which involved him making a covert, 10-hour train trip ahead of his previously announced visit to Poland. Other means of travel were considered and dismissed, said aides not authorized to speak publicly about security measures. Driving might have been possible, but there were concerns about transporting enough escort vehicles to Poland as well as concerns about stops to refuel and dangers posed by the quality of Ukraine’s shelled roads.
Another option was to defiantly fly in on Air Force One. Proponents of that idea believed it would reflect a powerful show of resolve and signal that Russia was not to be feared, aides said. Ultimately, Moscow was given notice of the trip and U.S. officials believed that Putin and his military would not try anything against the presidential plane out of fear of retaliation. But the idea was tossed aside because the skies over Ukraine were not secure and there was no way to guarantee that a rogue actor on the ground might not try to down the instantly recognizable aircraft.
The centerpiece events of Biden’s trip to Eastern Europe went off spectacularly, aides believe. But what followed was Biden’s message to the Bucharest Nine, underscoring the challenges of holding the alliance together.
Kyiv, too, has not always been on the same page with the rest of the alliance. Zelenskyy has vowed not to negotiate until Russia has abandoned all of the Ukrainian territory it has seized — a declaration that includes Crimea, which Moscow forcibly annexed in 2014. But U.S. officials have sent signals to Kyiv that trying to retake Crimea would be difficult — and perhaps a mistake, potentially crossing a red line for Putin that would trigger an escalation.
U.S. officials are skeptical that Putin’s battered and humiliated military can conquer Kyiv but they do believe the Russian leader has no inclination to abandon his bloody quest. Possessing a massive manpower advantage and seemingly little consideration for the loss of life, Putin continues to throw waves of men into battle.
“Putin has not shown any interest in ending this war, so we will continue to help Ukraine succeed on the battlefield so they can be in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table for when that time comes,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. “That’s why we are working closely with our allies and partners, including Germany, to get Ukraine the weapons and equipment they need to defend itself against Russia’s invasion.”
Even a frozen conflict, one that weakens Ukraine and the West, would be perceived as a partial win for Putin, U.S. officials believe. Most intelligence analysts on both sides of the Atlantic believe the war, as currently fought, could stretch for years. While that would end up draining each nation’s military and economy, the Biden administration has begun to loudly sound the alarm that Moscow may soon have help on the way.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week declared that the U.S. believes China is considering sending lethal military aid to Russia, a development that could change the war’s trajectory. Much like it did on the eve of Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration broadcast its intelligence with the hope that the public threats may deter Beijing from acting. U.S. intelligence officials believe China has not yet decided on a course of action, a senior official said.
Though a move to help Moscow would bring severe economic repercussions from the West, China may consider propping up Putin enough to allow him to save face and wind the war down with some gains. That, in turn, would allow him to keep power and not bring instability to China’s borders. Additionally, U.S. analysts believe, China may be trying to ensnare the U.S. and its allies in a lengthy proxy conflict, draining their resources and potentially making it less of a threat if Beijing were to move on Taiwan.
“Their economy is based on globalization and they have to know that helping Russia will lead to sanctions and endanger that so we have to ask ourselves, ‘What do they have to gain?’” said Hagar Chemali, a former National Security Council and Treasury Department official under Obama. “Helping Russia would make things more difficult for Ukraine and more expensive for the U.S.”
“And this we know: Xi is not rash,” Chemali said. “He always plays the long game.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 3, 2023
Biden will back Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes,’ Yellen says in Kyiv

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“As you have said, our support is not ‘charity,’” Yellen told Zelenskyy. “It’s an ‘investment in global security and democracy.’”
Yellen’s trip comes a week after President Joe Biden made his own surprise visit to Kyiv, a show of support that marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
On Friday, the U.S. announced a new $10 billion aid package to Ukraine to support energy and budget costs, as well as $2 billion in security assistance. The U.S. has so far provided Ukraine with close to $50 billion aid, Yellen said Monday in Kyiv.
“Just as your life is a part of the history of Ukraine – I believe that Ukraine is a central part of the history of the free world. And you are writing our history right now,” Yellen said. “As you do, I hope you know this: America stands with you in this fight for freedom. And we will be by your side to help you rebuild.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 27, 2023
Months of secret planning and the president’s persistence: How Biden finally got to Kyiv

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During his trip to Poland last March, Biden got as far as Rzeszow, some 60 miles from Ukraine’s border, and lamented that he couldn’t go any further.
“Part of my disappointment is that I can’t see it firsthand like I have in other places,” he said during a briefing on refugees. He alluded to security concerns as the main concern. “They will not let me, understandably, I guess, cross the border and take a look at what’s going on in Ukraine.”
On Monday, Biden finally made the visit to Kyiv, a trip that had been “meticulously planned” over several months. It happened through the work of small teams of individuals across several agencies: the White House chief of staff’s office, the National Security Council, the White House military office, the Pentagon, U.S. Secret Service and the intelligence community.
Biden recounted his six visits to Ukraine as vice president, telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “I knew I’d be back, but I wanted to be sure.”
U.S. officials described Biden’s visit to the active war zone as “unprecedented,” citing the absence of any U.S. military footprint in Ukraine and the smaller-than-normal diplomatic operation at the American embassy in Kyiv. Only after Biden had crossed back into Poland around 8 p.m. local time Monday did the White House confirm details about his travel.
His journey began when he departed Saturday at 4:15 a.m. from Joint Base Andrews aboard a C-32 aircraft, flying to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and then on to Poland’s Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport.
From there, Biden headed to the train station and quickly boarded a heavily-secured eight-car train with its windows drawn for the overnight journey to Kyiv. He arrived just after 8 a.m. Monday, stepping off the train and declaring, “It’s good to be back in Kyiv,” according to a pool report filed hours later, after he’d returned safely to Poland.
The logistically complex trip, and arguably the most symbolically important of Biden’s presidency, came days ahead of the war’s one-year anniversary and served notice to Russia that the West would continue to stand firmly behind Ukraine. Biden’s long-anticipated travel to the country’s frazzled capital provided more than just a photo-op, but a chance to talk with Zelenskyy about a conflict with no end in sight and how much more the West can do to hasten its conclusion — and ensure it takes place on Ukraine’s terms.

Even after Biden had safely and successfully left Kyiv on Monday, White House officials refused to share details of how he traveled there in the first place, citing ongoing security concerns over his extraordinary visit to an active war zone.
Biden traveled with a much smaller group of aides and security officials than usual, the White House said. Only two reporters traveled with Biden and both were required to give up their phones for the duration of the journey, unable to send colleagues any information or report on the trip until Biden had reached Kyiv. They were joined in Kyiv by a two-person CBS News crew that rode in the president’s motorcade, according to the White House Correspondents’ Association.
“Coming over, the president was very focused on making sure he made the most of his time on the ground, which he knew was going to be limited,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, told reporters on a call Monday morning after making the trip alongside the president. “He was excited about making the trip.”
The full travel pool of reporters and photographers originally scheduled to fly with the president to Poland was left behind but was still expected to depart as planned Monday night, making a rare overseas trip aboard a presidential aircraft without the president on board. The two journalists who made the covert journey with Biden said they were informed about the trip Friday afternoon. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield swore them to secrecy, instructing them to look for departure information in an email Saturday with the subject line: “Arrival instructions for the golf tourney.”
Hours before Biden’s arrival in Ukraine, U.S. officials informed Russia of the president’s travel, Sullivan said, “for deconfliction purposes,” an effort to avoid any kind of inadvertent escalation that could have brought the two nations into direct military conflict.
Biden’s visit underscored the evolving calculations of an administration increasingly comfortable with its role in the war — and less worried about retaliation from Moscow.
Over a year of fighting, the U.S. has calibrated its response in alignment with other NATO allies and sought to balance the need to stand up for Ukraine’s sovereignty against potential escalations that could spark a more direct conflict with Russia. As the war has dragged on, the U.S. has adjusted its risk assessments, gradually ratcheting up defense aid for Ukraine’s military amid Zelenskyy’s public pressure campaign and as intelligence officials have grown less nervous about Russian President Vladimir Putin following through on implicit threats of launching a full-fledged war against the West.
Aides said they would release more details about how the president traveled to Ukraine and the security precautions taken at the end of his trip, which is set to conclude Wednesday after two days of meetings and a speech in Poland. Sullivan declined to offer more details about the nature of the conversation or Moscow’s response.
In Kyiv, reports about a possible visit by the American president ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion began circulating earlier in the day. U.S. military jets were seen circling near the Polish border and Kyiv residents posted videos on social media of lockdowns in the city center and near the U.S. Embassy. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also canceled a planned visit to Brussels on Monday for the Foreign Affairs Council.
A Ukrainian government official said the Ukrainians “have been requesting this visit for a long time.” The official added the visit had been prepared “in a very short amount of time” — around one week, “with the utmost level of secrecy through [top Zelenskyy aide Andriy] Yermak’s and Kuleba’s lines of communication.” The official was granted anonymity because the individual wasn’t authorized to speak on the record.
For security reasons, “only a handful of people in each department were involved,” said Jonathan Finer, the deputy national security adviser and, as a second U.S. official put it, “the logistical point man” for the trip.
Discussions about what to address during the trip took place over a few weeks, as aides worked to prep the president on the arms package, sanctions and what to chat about with Zelenskyy, a third U.S. official said.
The president, he added, made the final decision Friday to go ahead with the trip after an Oval Office meeting with key members of his national security team.
“His security team was able to bring risk to a manageable level and that was what ultimately led him to make the call to go,” Sullivan said. “He got a full presentation of a very good and very effective operational security plan. He heard that presentation, he was satisfied that the risk was manageable, and he ultimately made the determination.”
Notably, Biden did not go home to Wilmington, Del., for the weekend as he almost always does, staying at the White House. On Saturday, he and the first lady, after his usual afternoon trip to mass, stopped by the Smithsonian Museum of American History and then had dinner at a restaurant in Washington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood.
On Sunday, a “travel/photo lid” was declared in the early morning, alerting the press corps that the president would not be leaving the White House for the rest of the day.
But he was already gone.
Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report from Kyiv.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 20, 2023
US President Biden reaches Kyiv to Celebrate Russia-Ukraine Conflict anniversary

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US President Joe Biden on Monday made a trip to Kyiv, to celebrate first anniversary of Russia-Ukraine conflict. On the occasion President Biden promised increased arms deliveries for Ukraine global celebration of next anniversary of the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered Air sirens across the capital to welcome the enabler Joe Biden.
In his statement, Joe Biden wished people of Ukraine long live the conflict and many more anniversaries of the conflict.
Sources suggest that Joe Biden isn’t well and he mistakenly reached Ukraine while trying to reach Ohio where a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed, exploding into flames and unleashing a spume of chemical smoke.
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[ Disclaimer: With inputs from The Fauxy, an entertainment portal. The content is purely for entertainment purpose and readers are advised not to confuse the articles as genuine and true, these Articles are Fictitious meant only for entertainment purposes. ]

February 20, 2023
Biden visits Kyiv ahead of anniversary of Russia’s invasion

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“I thought it was critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the war,” Biden said during a joint address with Zelenskyy.
The shock appearance happened under immense secrecy, with Biden taking off from Joint Andrews Base at 4:15 am local time. U.S. officials had expressed concerns that Biden couldn’t fly into Ukraine or take a ten-hour train ride without immense risk to the host nation or himself. Ensuring the president’s safety was a near-impossible endeavor, those officials said, though they acknowledged Biden had long wanted to go Kyiv.
All told, Biden remained on the ground roughly five hours, visiting the embassy and walking the streets of Ukraine’s beleaguered capital — the same city Russia tried to seize 12 months ago — and meeting with Zelenskyy. It was his eight trip to Kyiv. This time, he was flanked by a handful of staffers, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan. “Each time more significant,” Biden said.
As the two men toured Kyiv, air raid sirens went off in the Ukrainian capital. Still, the message of his visit was clear: Ukraine is safe enough for an American president to visit despite the missile strikes, drone attacks and trench warfare initiated by Vladimir Putin.
In a statement after his arrival, Biden said that Putin “thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong.”
In the address with Zelenskyy, the U.S. president announced a new, half-billion dollar weapons package that will include artillery ammunition and anti-armor systems like Howitzers and Javelins, as well as sanctions “against elites and companies that are trying to evade or backfill Russia’s war machine.”
Zelenskyy, who has been pushing for the West to send longer-range missiles to hit faraway Russian positions inside Ukraine, said those long-range missiles are under discussion.
He thanked Biden for visiting in “the most difficult time” for Ukraine and said the two leaders held a wide discussion with their teams.

“This conversation brings us closer to the victory,” Zelensky said. “Today our negotiations were very fruitful …They were very important and crucial.”
Zelenskyy also said he looked forward to conversations with Biden about “what we have to do to stop the war, to have success in this war … and how to win this year.”
Biden had been under immense pressure to visit Kyiv from Republicans, Democrats and foreign counterparts. Zelenskyy has received multiple sitting European leaders and American lawmakers, making Biden’s absence more conspicuous with each passing month. A scheduled trip to Poland to mark the one-year anniversary of the war, provided the White House with the opportunity to make the covert trip.
Reports started to circulate ahead of the visit that Biden was on his way as security preparations became obvious in and around the Ukrainian capital. U.S. military jets were seen circling near the Polish border and Kyiv residents posted videos on social media of lockdowns in the city center and near the U.S. Embassy.
The trip to Europe was designed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the war, with Biden set to denounce Putin’s incursion and publicly declare that the United States will support Ukraine until the final moments of the conflict. His physical presence in Kyiv could be one of the enduring legacies of his war-anniversary trip.
It’s unclear how or if Putin will retaliate. There is already widespread fear that he would mark the one-year anniversary on Feb. 24 with a show of force, such as by ordering a larger barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine.
Following his stop, Biden is set to fly to Warsaw where he’ll deliver a speech Tuesday to celebrate Ukraine’s remarkable resistance and the West’s collective defense of the targeted country. It’s a reprise of his address in Poland last year about how the United States aimed to partner with allies to help Ukraine. The most memorable line of the speech, however, was what appeared then to be a call for regime change in Russia: “For God’s sake,” he said, “this man cannot remain in power.”
Veronika Melkozerova contributed to this report from Kyiv.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 20, 2023
Keir Starmer visits Kyiv to emphasise Labour’s backing for Ukraine

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Keir Starmer has travelled to Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to emphasise Labour’s commitment to backing action to arm the country against a renewed offensive by Russia.
The Labour leader said the UK’s position on Ukraine would remain the same if there was a change of government next year, as he travelled to the suburbs of Irpin and Bucha where Russia committed significant atrocities last year as it was pushed back by Ukrainian forces.
“It’s incredible to see the evidence of atrocities that I’ve seen this morning. Photographs of civilians in the outskirts of Kyiv blindfolded, with their arms tied behind their back,” Starmer told Reuters.
He said he had travelled to Ukraine to express solidarity with the country and to emphasise the need to pursue justice and reparations against perpetrators. “There has to be justice for this. There has to be justice in The Hague and there has to be proper reparation in the rebuilding of Ukraine,” he said.
Speaking after his conversation with Zelenskiy, Starmer said it was a “constructive meeting” that had touched on the new military support Ukraine needs, as Kyiv continues to urge western leaders to give it fighter jets.
“We spoke about the need for that justice to cover both the use of Russian state assets for reconstruction and the need for there to be prosecutions for war crimes,” Starmer said.
“I was able to tell him that should there be a change of government when we have a general election here, the support for Ukraine will remain the same. It’s a very important message for me to be able to relay to the president face-to-face, and I’ve been able to do that this afternoon.”
Starmer said he held a ‘constructive meeting’ with Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Photograph: Office of the President of Ukraine/PA
Starmer said Zelenskiy was very concerned about whether Labour would continue support through weapons and training. “I stressed that the Labour party supports and would maintain the defence, training, and technological support the current UK government is providing,” he said.

“I’ve said throughout this conflict there will be no difference between the political parties on this, so we will continue to work with the government to see what further support we can provide.”
The trip is the start of an international charm campaign for the Labour leader, during which he will visit the Munich security conference over the weekend for meetings with world leaders.
The Guardian reported last year that Starmer had approached the Zelenskiy government about the possibility of a visit as opposition leader. Starmer has previously visited the Polish border and British troops in Estonia to affirm Labour’s “unshakeable” commitment to Nato, which a Labour government helped to found.
The trip has been postponed previously, during the turmoil of the collapse of Liz Truss’s government and because of the security situation in Ukraine.
Starmer is not the first national opposition leader to visit Kyiv. Friedrich Merz, the head of Germany’s biggest opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), travelled to the capital in May and was received by Zelenskiy.
Starmer is keen to portray himself to the Ukrainians as a reliable partner and strong supporter. At prime minister’s questions during Zelenskiy’s visit to London this month, he used all his time at the dispatch box to stress cross-party unity on Ukraine, rather than challenging Rishi Sunak.
He said Labour “doesn’t just hope for Ukrainian victory, we believe in it” and highlighted his time as a barrister representing victims of Serbian aggression at the international court of justice in The Hague. “We in this house have a duty to stand on the shoulders of giants and support Ukraine’s fight for freedom, liberty and victory,” Starmer said.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 16, 2023
Ukrainian composer Heinali on preserving the sound of Kyiv: ‘I wanted to protect my city from harm’

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The latest album by Heinali is a rather beautiful piece created from field recordings made around his home city – recordings from rail stations, the sound of traffic and birdsong, the dripping of water in a tunnel, the rumbling of trains on a track, the babble of voices in a shopping mall – all sliced up, manipulated, accompanied by synthesisers and transformed into a piece of compelling ambient music. What transforms this niche arthouse project into an urgent piece of work is the fact that the city in question is Kyiv. “These are recordings of a world that has disappeared,” says Heinali, AKA Ukrainian musician Oleh Shpudeiko. “The album documents a city that has changed for ever.”
The album, Kyiv Eternal, was completed after the Russian invasion, but the project dates back more than a decade. “I bought myself a handheld digital tape recorder in 2012 and started to record sounds around Kyiv,” says Shpudeiko. “I had hundreds of these sound sketches on my hard drive when I had to flee the city in February last year.”
He relocated to Lviv while the battle of Kyiv raged in the early months of the war, and briefly returned after the Russian army’s advances were successfully repelled. “Kyiv was more alive than ever, but I wanted to protect it from harm, to console it,” he says. “This was a city where I had spent 37 years of my life. So this album became a hymn to this part of my identity.”
Heinali: Kyiv Eternal – stream Spotify
Shpudeiko describes the audio loops he works with as “memory loops”. He explains: “When we remember things, we only remember certain parts. We might change parts of that memory in our brain: we’ll add or remove or amplify a piece of information. It is very similar to a musical loop. A fragment performed over and over again will change slightly with each repetition.”
Kyiv Eternal is released exactly a year after the Russian invasion, and comes not long after the release of another Heinali album, Live From a Bomb Shelter in Ukraine, which documents a performance live-streamed from a Lviv basement as Russian missiles rained down upon the nation. That album featured music from a project called Organa which he has been working on for several years, in which medieval liturgical music is reconfigured for modular synths and non-classical vocalists.
“Early music and contemporary music have a lot in common,” says Shpudeiko. “Medieval music is less about harmonic development and more about creating a certain atmosphere and a feeling. Drone and ambient music is the same. It is designed to invoke certain religious experiences, mystical experiences.”
Shpudeiko is now living temporarily in Germany, one of hundreds of Ukrainian artists relocated around Europe (thanks to the support of Ukraine’s ministry of culture) who aim to preserve and further Ukrainian art in exile. He would have loved to have come to the UK: his English is flawless, London is his favourite city and he has long been influenced by British electronic artists such as Coil, Psychic TV, Current 93 and Death in June. But the UK’s asylum policy made this almost impossible. “It is incredibly hard to get a UK visa – it costs a lot of money and British embassies demand your passport for the duration of the application process, which can take as long as three months.”
‘Early music and contemporary music have a lot in common’ … Oleh Shpudeiko pictured in 2020. Photograph: Ksenia Popova
Shpudeiko was brought up in a Russian-speaking family but he rejects the myth – promulgated by Putin and his “Vatnik” apologists – that Ukraine’s Russian speakers are pro-Moscow. However, the invasion has changed his attitude towards the Russian language. “I used to read a lot in Russian. Things I wanted to read – the literature, or the books about music history or sound studies – were only available in English or Russian, never translated into Ukrainian.

“But after 24 February, I haven’t been able to read a single Russian book. I switched off that part of my brain. It was quite painful. I still speak Russian occasionally in non-official situations, like with my family, but officially I only use Ukrainian or English. I think we have all had to put Russian on pause for the duration of the war. It is extremely traumatic for any of us to deal with even the greatest Russian culture right now, knowing what they did in Bucha or Mariupol. I understand that this is not a healthy reaction, but there can be no healthy reactions to war.”
How does he see the war panning out? “I am the worst person to ask about this,” he says. “This time last year I was arguing with my girlfriend: ‘No of course there won’t be a full-scale invasion.’ Worst-case scenario was that there would be another active phase of war in the east. The Russians trying to take Kyiv seemed insane.”
Will he be touring Kyiv Eternal? “My live shows are much more improvised affairs. I’m not sure if I should ever perform this material outside of Ukraine. It is so closely connected with my home town. Maybe it can exist as a sound art installation, but it is too personal to think of doing this live.”
Kyiv Eternal is released on 24 February via Injazero Records.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 15, 2023