Mikaev Biden, the Deputy Secretary of State of the U.S., and a Visit to Kyiv, Ukraine
Nestled near Europe’s rooftop, Finland spent decades leveraging its location to become a popular gateway for Asian travelers. Finnair’s flights from Tokyo, Seoul, and Shanghai were hours shorter than flights to any other European capital thanks to their crossing over Russia. The new terminal has streamlined transfers which the airport chiefs invested in. There were signs in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and hot water dispensers for the instant noodle packets favored by Chinese tourists.
Russia banned European airlines from using its airspace in response to the bans on Russian planes. What was once a nine-hour flight to Helsinki when routed over Russia’s 3,000-mile expanse would now take 13 hours and as much as 40 percent more fuel because it had to swoop around borders.
In March of last year, Biden stopped in Rzeszow to visit the US troops deployed near the Ukrainian border and to see humanitarian efforts supporting Ukrainian refugees. During that visit 11 months ago, he alluded to what became a long-running desire to extend his journey just a little further into Ukraine.
Biden said that the assistance would include more military equipment, such as Howitzers and javelins. And he said new sanctions would be imposed on Moscow later this week.
Biden has visited the Ukrainian capital a number of times, with his lieutenants including Secretary of State and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Senior administration officials, including CIA Director Bill Burns and top White House officials, visited Kyiv last month.
Biden stood alongside Zelensky, and he said that Putin thought that the West was divided. “He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now.”
Biden’s trip to Kyiv was shrouded in secrecy, a reflection of the steep security concerns. The reporters on the plane weren’t allowed to bring their gadgets with them because they couldn’t carry them in their luggage.
Biden has a small group of people with him, including his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and his deputy chief of staff, Jen O’Malley Dillon.
The trip comes ahead of Biden’s planned two-day visit to Poland. The White House said that President Barack Obama would be in Warsaw on Tuesday for a meeting with the Polish president.
On Mother’s Day last year Biden’s wife paid a surprise visit to a small city in the far southwestern corner of Ukraine. She met with Zelenska at a former school that was converted into temporary housing for displaced Ukrainians, including 48 children.
Now, with the war nearing its one-year mark on February 24, Biden is hoping to demonstrate to the world his commitment to Ukraine, even as it remains unclear how much longer US and western resolve can last.
The US has not defined what a settlement might look like beyond stating that it will be up to Zelensky to decide.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Wang will arrive at Moscow for the first visit to the Russian war zone after the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Saturday night
American officials told CNN on Saturday the US has recently begun seeing “disturbing” trends and there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Moscow without getting caught.
The officials would not describe in detail what intelligence the US has seen suggesting a recent shift in China’s posture, but said US officials have been concerned enough that they have shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the last several days.
Wang is expected to arrive in Moscow this week as China’s top foreign policy advisor, in his first visit to the country from a Chinese official since the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
According to China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang’s visit will provide an opportunity for China and Russia to continue to develop their strategic partnership and “exchange views” on “international and regional hotspot issues of shared interest” – a catch-all phrase often used to allude to topics including the war in Ukraine.
Around 7 p.m. ET on Saturday night, President Joe Biden was out in Washington on a Valentine’s week date-night, lingering over rigatoni with fennel sausage ragu before returning with his wife to the White House.
He left the Cathedral 36 hours later in the middle of the day, as air raid sirens wailed a reminder of the risks that come with traveling to wartorn Ukraine.
Cloaked in secrecy and weighted with history, Biden’s trip was the work of months of planning by only a small handful of his senior-most aides, who recognized long ago the symbolic importance of visiting the Ukrainian capital a year after Russia tried to capture it.
Yet it was more than symbolism that drove Biden to endure the significant risk of visiting an active war zone without significant US military assets on the ground.
In conversations at the Mariinsky Palace, Biden sought to engage Zelensky in a detailed and urgent discussion about the next phases of the war, which US officials say has arrived at a critical juncture.
On the prospect of traveling to Ukraine – a trip that would take 14 years to make the most of his time in a war zone
“This is so much larger than just Ukraine. It’s about freedom of democracy in Europe, it’s about freedom and democracy at large,” he said, his blue-and-yellow tie an overt nod to his Ukrainian hosts.
The trip was fluid, and that’s what made it so. Even as the small circle of White House officials looped in on the planning grew confident it was an achievable undertaking, the realities of sending a president into a war zone where the US had no control over the air space were daunting.
Jake Sullivan, an adviser to Biden, said that the US informed Russia of their plan to visit the Ukrainian capital.
John Kirby, NSC spokesman, said that there were no plans for the president to enter the country while he was there.
But at that point, Biden had already lifted off from Joint Base Andrews hours before, not in the usual plane that is synonymous with Air Force One, but instead in a smaller Air Force C-32.
The flight would stop at a US base in Germany before entering Poland. As he jetted eastward, Biden’s focus was plotting out his conversations with Zelensky, hoping to use his limited time wisely in discussing the coming months of fighting.
While in Poland, Biden said that he was disappointed that he couldn’t see the humanitarian crisis in person like he did in other places. They will not let me go cross the border and check out what’s happening in Ukraine, I guess.
This time around, with an expanded set of US air assets overhead keeping close watch at the Polish border, he would make the trip. Biden, his team of advisers and Secret Service went on a 10-hour train journey to the center of the war-torn country.
Biden watched as a parade of his foreign counterparts traveled into Ukraine, the culmination of a process that began months earlier.
Canada’s Trudeau, France’s Macron, Italy’s Meloni, and Britain’s Sunak were among the world leaders who took the train to the Ukrainian capital. The only G7 leader not yet to visit the country by train is Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
A person familiar with the situation said Biden was presented with a number of options but decided that the capital of Ukraine was better for his visit.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said that this was a risk that Joe Biden wanted to take. “It’s important to him to show up, even when it’s hard, and he directed his team to make it happen, no matter how challenging the logistics.”
On Monday, after the trip concluded, national security adviser Jake Sullivan declined to say whether Biden had to overrule Secret Service or military officials in order to proceed with the trip.
“He got a full presentation of a very good and very effective operational security plan. Sullivan said that he heard the presentation and that he made a determination to go.
But the visit caused fury in Russian pro-military and ultranationalist circles, as it upstages Putin on the eve of a major address in which the Russian president is expected to tout the supposed achievements of what he euphemistically calls a “special military operation.”
There is a man in Kyiv. Russian journalist Sergey Mardan wrote on his Telegram channel that he had experienced humiliation of Russia. “Tales of miraculous hypersonics may be left for children. The holy war we are fighting against the entire West is just like that.
The former Federal Security Service officer has speculated that Biden could have visited the frontlines of easternUkraine and escaped unharmed.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if the grandfather (he is not good for anything but simple provocations anyway) is brought to Bakhmut as well… AND NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO HIM,” Girkin said.
Girkin is among a number of hardline military bloggers – some of whom have hundreds of thousands of followers and provide analysis of the conflict for large swaths of the Russian population – who have repeatedly criticized what they consider a “soft” approach on the battlefield by Putin’s generals.
Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, is known for making belligerent pronouncements in an apparent bid to shore up his nationalist credentials.
The debate over Biden’s visit will have a negative affect on Putin, who will discuss the invasion in a speech to the Federal Assembly on Tuesday.
The people referred to as the “special military operation” will be in attendance but foreign guests and representatives will not be invited, a Kremlin Spokesperson told reporters Monday.
Despite a failed assault on central and northeastern Ukraine one year ago, Putin is expected to launch a fresh offensive in the coming weeks.
What does the World Need to Know About the Ukraine? CNN News Editor’s Note: The Case of Kyiv and Zelensky
Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. You can give your opinion on CNN.
Kyiv is standing and Ukraine is standing a year later. Democracy stands,” he declared, adding, “The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”
Russia had brought their dress uniforms with them to the invasion and they were expecting a parade, according to the Ukrainians.
Instead, the war has given the world an unending series of surprises. Russia’s army turned out to be much less competent than anyone expected; Putin was not quite the genius many believed.
Zelensky was much steelier and inspiring than almost any leader in recent memory. NATO was more united than anyone anticipated and Europeans were willing to support Ukraine.
Biden is 80 and walking with a stiff body. But he has no shortage of courage (air raid sirens sounded over Kyiv while Biden was there) or, crucially, competence.
Who can forget the infamous phone call after which Trump was impeached, when Zelensky implored the US President for help to deter an aggressive Russia? Trump tried to push Ukraine into investigating Biden even though he believed that Biden was weak, because he wanted to keep him out of the race.
A joyous Zelensky said Biden’s visit “brings us closer to victory,” adding it will “have repercussions on the battlefield in liberating our territories.”
Biden was criticized by GOP members for going to Ukraine. The trip was described by Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene as being incredibly insulting. The congressman was in the middle of a legal dispute with the Justice Department over his cell phone in the special counsels January 6 probe and described as “breathtaking” that Biden would not do the same for America.
Kamyshin’s magic day: escaping into Mariupol, a port city in the Russian-occupied Ukraine during the First Ukrainian War
If the line is damaged in the fighting the Ukrainians will leap into action. When the city of Kherson was liberated eight days later, trains would run into the city again.
“It was a magic day,” Kamyshin says. “We saw the faces of the people seeing the train, crying, waving their hands. Trust me, it was unforgettable. It is one of the most memorable days of the year.
It’s an immense responsibility for Kamyshin, who started with the company just six months before Russia invaded. It was all about procuring new stuff, and green light new projects when I joined with the problem. He said that a year ago they had to change to war time and rails.
During the first three weeks of the war last year, as Russian troops pushed into central and southern Ukraine, the railway’s main focus was on evacuations and on moving humanitarian aid into towns and cities being bombed and shelled. Passenger trains went west toward the Polish border carrying refugees, then returned to the front filled with supplies.
Railway workers managed to get trains in and out several times before the tracks were destroyed in Mariupol, a port city on the Black Sea that is close to the Russian border. The stranded crews were able to evacuate by road, but two trains are still stuck there.
The Ukrainian Railways as a Traveling Diplomatical Highway: Night Trains, Medical Treatment, Food and Drinks – A Report from CNN Travel
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Kamyshin thinks the Ukrainian Railways could teach other rail networks a few things. He says that the world should pay more attention to night owls.
With commercial air links canceled and the skies too dangerous to fly politicians in and out of the country, the rail network has become the country’s diplomatic highway. Over 200 foreign diplomatic missions have arrived in the country by train so far.
First constructed in pre-Soviet times, its network is predominantly a broad gauge railway – different to the standard gauge, which most of Europe uses.
This isn’t just about making passenger journeys easier. It is crucial for much of the world to have Ukrainian produce, including grain. In 2022, 28.9 million tons of grain were transported via the railways, most of which was exported. According to Ukrzaliznytsia, 60 million tons of goods were exported from Ukraine.
“Before the war, we had planes, cars, buses and trains,” Ukrzaliznytsia’s CEO Alexander Kamyshin told CNN Travel. “Now we’ve got trains and cars, no airplanes. We are a large country. So to get from Kyiv to west, south or east Ukraine, sleeper trains are the best way to do it. You go to the train in the late evening, travel the whole night, and in the morning you are in the city you need to be. So you don’t waste time.
Some trains were moved to make them better for medical use. More than 2500 people were evacuated for medical treatment via rail last year. The network also transported nearly 336,000 tons of humanitarian aid.
Amtrak’s latest on-time performance figures, looking at June 2022, show that on average, just over 22% of trains ran on time across the US. More than half of trains arriving late have been reversed in some areas.
Penalba says that because low-cost airlines entered Ukraine later than in the rest of Europe, the country retained its network of night trains, with limited domestic flights.
If you live on the opposite side of Kyiv, it will take an hour to get to Odesa, so a flight from Kyiv would be all you need. Ultimately it’s more convenient to take the train at 11 p.m., sleep, and arrive at 7 a.m.”
Penalba left Kyiv with her family on the second day of the 2022 invasion, driving to France, where her husband is from. But she returned alone in the summer to take care of personal business, and to see if it felt safe to move back.
When the family moved back to Kyiv, in August 2022, they again took the train from Poland, getting a second class, four-berth compartment for her, her husband and their two kids. Their only stress? The Polish train was stuck for three hours. Unlike the Ukrainian one.
“It’s a really efficient, comfortable way of transportation. And governments should review their relationships to railways. The railways are important in a crisis.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ukrainian-railways-biden-diplomacy/index.html
Rail travel for diplomats: What happens when we are traveling in third class? A case study with Ukrainian Prime Minister Kamyshin, whose country agreed to an air defense system
The cost of a lie-flat bed for a four-person second class seat on a cross-border train is about fifty dollars, but Penalba says that domestic routes are even cheaper. She says first class would be about 40 euro.
Koen Berghuis, editor-in-chief of train specialist travel website, Paliparan, is another fan. Dutch national based in Romania takes around half a dozen long distance or overnight trains per month, and traveled to Ukraine more than 10 times before the war.
Kamyshin says that the only real change to the service in the past year is that trains run at slightly reduced speeds now. “It’s not much slower, but we slowed them down deliberately to make it safer in case of something [happening].”
Of course, politicians don’t travel in third class. Kamyshin won’t reveal details of the service they do get, but he says that “guests of iron diplomacy,” as he calls them, “usually spend more time on the train than in the city.”
These things help our guests understand what we want from them, like iris flowers or leopard printing clothes, as we are delicate and always treat them properly.
A vase of irises was put in the train for the visit of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country agreed to supply an air defense system called Iris-T. For another politician, staff wore leopard print accessories, in a nod to the Leopard-2 tanks Ukraine was requesting from the country in question. Poland and Germany have donated Leopard-2 tanks, with Germany giving more on the first anniversary of the invasion.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ukrainian-railways-biden-diplomacy/index.html
Ukraine’s rail network: From Amsterdam to Athens, Kansas City and back: how Russian people use trains to get their lives in Russia
“It was basically the same as Amsterdam to Lisbon or Athens, or New York to Kansas City,” he says. Most passengers on those types of routes would fly.
It is important for them to keep the country united and for it to allow people to visit family and friends. They use trains to deliver some things.
PR is important because they are showing Russia that they can run trains even during a war. We can use diesel or steam locomotives, even if there is no electricity. But the rail network is also a lifeline in many more ways than we can imagine.”
He says there are three classes to a sleeper with each carriage having its own attendant. They are here to help passengers get on and off at the right stations, take orders for snacks and tea, and give them their bedding. But they’re also there for security – especially important when you’re sleeping in an open cabin of 50-odd berths.
The third class carriages are essentially bunkbeds which double as seats in the daytime part of the trip.
“The attendants keep an eye out for everyone in their wagon – they’re proud of what they do,” says Berghuis. They don’t really need to. He says that third class carriages are “part of the fun, with people happy to share their food, stories, try and talk – even if it’s with hand gestures.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/ukrainian-railways-biden-diplomacy/index.html
Open Railways in Kyiv and Odesa: A Journey through Northern Europe with the Berghuis Trains and a New Frequency Railway
The stations are also worth visiting, says Berghuis, who singles out Kyiv and Lviv as two of the most beautiful historical stations in Europe, and loves Odesa for its “seaside, holiday vibe.”
In the year 2022, the country took possession of 65 new passenger rail carriages, bought two new diesel trains, and rejuvenated other trains in the network. New freight cars were constructed by them.
They have started six new international and domestic rail routes. The company electrified more track in the past decade.
For 2023, the company predicts a loss of 20.2 billion hryvnia – or $549 million. Yet it is looking to the future. Kids can learn about locomotives at the Children’s Railways that opened in May 2022, in Rivne and Kyiv. Almost 1,300 kids are studying at the two centers.