US President Joe Biden left a handwritten message for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he visited the Ukraine Royal Palace during a visit to the war-torn country. Joe Biden left the note in the palace guestbook in which he wrote that the city has “captured a part of my heart.”
Read more: Darkened plane, silent overnight train: Here’s how Biden reached Kyiv
“I am honored to be welcomed again in Kyiv. I stand in solidarity and friendship with the freedom loving people of Ukraine,” Joe Biden wrote.
“Mr President, please accept my deepest respect for your courage and leadership. Slava Ukraini!,” he added. Joe Biden used the visit to reaffirm his US’ commitment to supporting Ukraine amid Russian invasion for “as long as it takes.”
The US president also pledged an additional half a billion dollars in military assistance to Ukraine during the visit. The US has already delivered more than $100 billion in assistance to Ukraine.
“When (Russian President Vladimir) Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong,” Joe Biden said during the visit.
“The cost that Ukraine has had to pay is extraordinarily high. Sacrifices have been far too great. … We know that there will be difficult days and weeks and years ahead,” he added.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who accompanied the US president for the trip, said that Russia was not notified of Joe Biden’s travel plans.
“We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes,” Jake Sullivan said, adding, that the trip had “required a security, operational, and logistical effort from professionals across the US government to take what was an inherently risky undertaking and make it a manageable level of risk.”
