US president Joe Biden arrives in Kyiv in surprise visit ahead of invasion anniversary
Joe Biden has arrived in Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The US president’s public itinerary had suggested he would be visiting Poland, but the US president has just arrived in Ukraine’s capital.
Peter Beaumont is in Kyiv for the Guardian:
According to a Jim La Porta of Rolling Stone magazine, who had become aware of the visit in advance and was asked to keep it under wraps, US president Joe Biden was presented with an “array of plan” for this Ukraine trip including a meeting between Biden and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky at the Polish-Ukrainian border or in the western city of Lviv.
Biden however is to have reportedly insisted that he should visit the Ukrainian capital which became a symbol of resistance to the invasion during the battle of Kyiv in the early weeks of the war when Russia tried to take the city.
Air raid sirens going off and he is walking around. Big guess is there was a US Air Force shield set up that would have stopped anything before it got to Kyiv.
photos from same link picturing 2 presidents deserving a big “Hail to” particularly fitting today of all days, on presidents day:
KYIV, Ukraine — President Biden made a dramatic, unannounced visit to Kyiv on Monday, in a display of strong American support for Ukraine just four days before the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The secret, high-risk visit to the historic Ukrainian capital, where air raid sirens blared as Biden walked the streets,signals continued commitment from the United States, the largest financial and military backer of Ukraine’s effort to repel Russian invaders from its territory.
Biden was spotted outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shortly before noon local time. His visit capped an hours-long security lockdown as authorities blocked car traffic and even pedestrians from certain streets.
[…]
While other world leaders have visited Kyiv to meet with Zelensky and tour the war-scarred city over the past year, Biden has stayed away due to security concerns and fears about the possibility of conflict between the world’s two largest nuclear powers, sending senior aides in his place. First lady Jill Biden made a surprise visit to Western Ukraine
In a statement issued by the White House, Biden said his visit was intended to reaffirm American support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which Russia has violated since 2014, when Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and launched support for a separatist campaign in the eastern Donbas region.
“When Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us,” Biden said. “But he was dead wrong.”
The visit represented a major boost for Zelensky as he seeks to propel Ukrainian forces forward to recapture Russian-occupied territory, and appeals to his country’s partners for additional military support, including fighter jets. U.S. officials have so far declined to provide aircraft to Ukraine.
“Joseph Biden, welcome to Kyiv!” Zelensky said in a post on his Telegram feed. “Your visit is an extremely important sign of support for all Ukrainians.”
Biden’s trip was shrouded in secrecy and even greater security than other high-level visits. Biden had been due to leave for an announced visit to Poland from Washington on Monday evening but, according to a small group of reporters who traveled with Biden to Kyiv, actually departed Washington around 4 a.m. on Sunday.
Journalists accompanying Biden reported that they had agreed to withhold real-time details of the president’s movements until he departs, including information about how he arrived in the Ukrainian capital. The country’s airspace has been closed for the last year.
BB, sure wish that air force shield you mentioned could be kept there for the duration until mother russia cries uncle, tucks her tail and slinks away.
In some ways, all 46 U.S. presidents have been very much alike. So far they’ve all been men, for one, not lacking in ambition or charisma, and with a certain knack for self-promotion and networking.
God bless America, Slava Ukraine
…going to venture that Biden is the first acting U.S. President to be present in a theater of war since FDR
Didn’t the idiot bush go to iraq?
Bink – veep Johnson went to Vietnam sometime in the early sixties and Nixon went in 1969. As much a crook and slimey bastard as Nixon was he did go and did not need cases of depends.
those that did got to fly in and fly out posthaste. joe’s kyiv coming and going was a bit more risky.
even now just meeting with NATO leaders in warsaw is risky enough.
patd – President Biden dropping in was very risky. I just saw a clip of the motorcade. It did remind me that President Zelensky has been cleaning out a lot of russian sympathizers if not spies. Considering that puttie has no brain left I do not doubt he would have considered doing a strike of cruise missiles to try and kill him if he knew he was there.
Update: just saw confirmation that the air defense system was there, yeah, could not imagine it not being broght along.
BB, even very very riskier that they did the usual heads up with putie
The White House provided Russian officials with advance warning that President Bidenwould be traveling to Ukraine to mark the approaching anniversary of Russia’s invasion to avoid escalating tensions, administration officials said Monday.
“We did notify the Russians that President Biden would be traveling to Kyiv. We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivantold reporters.
Sullivan did not detail how Moscow responded to the news, and officials were careful in sharing other details about the planning around Biden’s trip for security reasons.
[continues]
DUM DUM DA DUM DUM DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM DUM…
That definitely was a gutsy move by Joe. Good for him.
Yup… it’s good to remember on this President’s Day that Jimmy Carter was a much better president than those of us who were alive at the time thought.
Biden has a brass set… he keeps surprising me… and I like it!
wtf? kevin is letting the tucker have an opportunity to skew what’s on the tapes before the public gets a chance to hear them unvarnished & unspun
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has finally released the 41,000 hours of surveillance footage filmed during the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol — but not publicly. The top Republican gave the footage to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, according to a new report in Axios.
Axios co-founder Mike Allen reported Monday morning:
“Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.”
[continues]
Well, good luck to Tucker reviewing and making sense of the 41,000 hours of surveillance tape. If my math is correct it would take one person 4.68 YEARS to review the recordings beginning to end – no naps, no food breaks, no potty breaks.
Good corrections of me, people.
Regardless, Putin must be furious. What a demonstration of confidence in Ukrainian military defense!
As Olbermann said, “Yippie-kye-yay, MotherPutin. ”
Now that the story of President Biden getting to enjoy a long train ride, he likes trains, and how the press was informed, and there was no air cover (which I take with a can of salt), it all makes for a good chapter in many books.
Add some hate and treason from the gqp. Many of the commies just cannot control themselves with talk of sedition, and hate. The whole thing is so disturbing that the sick side of the U.S. is free to run around and spread venom and dirt.
i’m reading that Washington gave Moscow advance notice, which means they had to stew on it for days 😆
The Iceman wenteth.
I just had a thought while reading up on what some of the Russian “pundits” were saying about a day visit to Kyiv by President Biden, what if this visit leads to puttie avoiding stairs, windows and tea, even more than he is already. Reference him at the long table, just out of blast zone type thing. There have been questions about his leadership, without reprisal.
Could he be retiring to his lake house/fort? Anything like that happening opens to the door to his replacement. Further nutjob KGB type, or another Gorbachev? I am sure, at least hoping, some team in a deep vault at a three letter agency is working on this question.
I’d like to see Old Joe come out and do the James Brown “slide” over to the microphone……
“Ow!!”
Well, POTUS Joe in Kyiv sent a clear message to China, which they may not have gotten if he’d only gone to Poland…and on Presidents Day.
Is Faux News going to use AI to edit those tapes?
bId – Artificial Intelligence is not magic. It is a bunch of specialized programming that falls under what we used to call process control. The concept is using a computer to do human actions. In the popular version, AI, instead of controlling a valve, and changing the parameters in the database needed to maintain a certain pressure range, it is to create a database of [special knowledge] (whatever special knowledge is, say phone numbers around the world.
The reason we have this power today is that memory is cheap and fast, and computing power is cheap and fast. You can process a lot of data real fast in a data center, you can gather a lot of data, fast, in a data center.
Say I want my special section of the world to be able to match a telephone number to any phone, anywhere in the world. Twenty years ago the cost would have been out of reach of a commercial business. Now, with memory cheap and computer power cheap, it is done. Type in a phone number and you will get a response.
AI is not special. It is a big energy user because it grabs all the information all the time to fill the database. Also, it is not human like. We are far away from that. If you think about it, AI is very specialized. So far HAL is not here,.
Now to your question. Will faux use AI to work the clips? I will say yes, but it is not intelligence, it is powerful computers and a lot of memory. I suspect they will be using some of the software I use to edit my videos. Great software, Davinci Resolve.
Whatever or however Tucker uses those tapes, he’ll be up to no good with them.
Hubs used to run into Joe at the train station in “Woomington” (that’s how we Delaware natives pronounce it.)
Ivy – I expect that entire group to take the videos to shift, splice, cut, and do things even my cat would not do, to create stuff that should be in a slaughter house waste pit.
What right did Kev McC have to give that footage to only Faux News or to anyone for that matter? This is not the only copy, correct?
Will Fluffy Carlson and his band of fascists try to rewrite/edit history? (Yes, BB, I’ve seen videos made with AI tech create scenarios with someone’s face. The potential is frightening.)
Since Faux seems against tRUMPsky, will they use it, as is, against him in a 2024 run?
Why did they need it? Why did they get it? It smells to high heaven.
BlueBronc, sadly, his audience will believe it because most will be seeing any of it for the first time.
My somber thought this evening of President’s Day has been with Rosalynn whose actual first name I didn’t realize-or-remember is Eleanor. What I recall is that when the Carters first came on the scene, we got tutoring on the proper pronunciation of Rose-a-lynn. This past weekend I heard mispronunciations, so maybe a new generation will benefit from correction in the next days or weeks. In the 80s, I read her unexpectedly moving autobiography, First Lady from Plains. Though I no longer have it on hand to check the reference, there is a line from her about her childhood that struck me. It’s to the effect you can’t know the peace and security that comes with a rainy day unless your livelihood is made by farming. I might want to see if I can obtain another copy.
and to Hell for some
on the other hand, let’s hear an “atta boy” today for joe
the guardian:
Hot damn – that man has brass.
Air raid sirens going off and he is walking around. Big guess is there was a US Air Force shield set up that would have stopped anything before it got to Kyiv.
photos from same link picturing 2 presidents deserving a big “Hail to” particularly fitting today of all days, on presidents day:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/20/president-biden-kyiv-ukraine-visit-war/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f001
BB, sure wish that air force shield you mentioned could be kept there for the duration until mother russia cries uncle, tucks her tail and slinks away.
46 facts about 46 Presidents
God bless America, Slava Ukraine
…going to venture that Biden is the first acting U.S. President to be present in a theater of war since FDR
Didn’t the idiot bush go to iraq?
Bink – veep Johnson went to Vietnam sometime in the early sixties and Nixon went in 1969. As much a crook and slimey bastard as Nixon was he did go and did not need cases of depends.
those that did got to fly in and fly out posthaste. joe’s kyiv coming and going was a bit more risky.
even now just meeting with NATO leaders in warsaw is risky enough.
patd – President Biden dropping in was very risky. I just saw a clip of the motorcade. It did remind me that President Zelensky has been cleaning out a lot of russian sympathizers if not spies. Considering that puttie has no brain left I do not doubt he would have considered doing a strike of cruise missiles to try and kill him if he knew he was there.
Update: just saw confirmation that the air defense system was there, yeah, could not imagine it not being broght along.
BB, even very very riskier that they did the usual heads up with putie
the hill:
DUM DUM DA DUM DUM DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM DUM…
That definitely was a gutsy move by Joe. Good for him.
Yup… it’s good to remember on this President’s Day that Jimmy Carter was a much better president than those of us who were alive at the time thought.
Biden has a brass set… he keeps surprising me… and I like it!
wtf? kevin is letting the tucker have an opportunity to skew what’s on the tapes before the public gets a chance to hear them unvarnished & unspun
JUST IN: Kevin McCarthy Releases Jan. 6 Riot Tapes — All 41,000 Hours — to Tucker Carlson (msn.com)
Well, good luck to Tucker reviewing and making sense of the 41,000 hours of surveillance tape. If my math is correct it would take one person 4.68 YEARS to review the recordings beginning to end – no naps, no food breaks, no potty breaks.
Good corrections of me, people.
Regardless, Putin must be furious. What a demonstration of confidence in Ukrainian military defense!
As Olbermann said, “Yippie-kye-yay, MotherPutin. ”
Now that the story of President Biden getting to enjoy a long train ride, he likes trains, and how the press was informed, and there was no air cover (which I take with a can of salt), it all makes for a good chapter in many books.
Add some hate and treason from the gqp. Many of the commies just cannot control themselves with talk of sedition, and hate. The whole thing is so disturbing that the sick side of the U.S. is free to run around and spread venom and dirt.
i’m reading that Washington gave Moscow advance notice, which means they had to stew on it for days 😆
The Iceman wenteth.
I just had a thought while reading up on what some of the Russian “pundits” were saying about a day visit to Kyiv by President Biden, what if this visit leads to puttie avoiding stairs, windows and tea, even more than he is already. Reference him at the long table, just out of blast zone type thing. There have been questions about his leadership, without reprisal.
Could he be retiring to his lake house/fort? Anything like that happening opens to the door to his replacement. Further nutjob KGB type, or another Gorbachev? I am sure, at least hoping, some team in a deep vault at a three letter agency is working on this question.
I’d like to see Old Joe come out and do the James Brown “slide” over to the microphone……
“Ow!!”
Well, POTUS Joe in Kyiv sent a clear message to China, which they may not have gotten if he’d only gone to Poland…and on Presidents Day.
Is Faux News going to use AI to edit those tapes?
bId – Artificial Intelligence is not magic. It is a bunch of specialized programming that falls under what we used to call process control. The concept is using a computer to do human actions. In the popular version, AI, instead of controlling a valve, and changing the parameters in the database needed to maintain a certain pressure range, it is to create a database of [special knowledge] (whatever special knowledge is, say phone numbers around the world.
The reason we have this power today is that memory is cheap and fast, and computing power is cheap and fast. You can process a lot of data real fast in a data center, you can gather a lot of data, fast, in a data center.
Say I want my special section of the world to be able to match a telephone number to any phone, anywhere in the world. Twenty years ago the cost would have been out of reach of a commercial business. Now, with memory cheap and computer power cheap, it is done. Type in a phone number and you will get a response.
AI is not special. It is a big energy user because it grabs all the information all the time to fill the database. Also, it is not human like. We are far away from that. If you think about it, AI is very specialized. So far HAL is not here,.
Now to your question. Will faux use AI to work the clips? I will say yes, but it is not intelligence, it is powerful computers and a lot of memory. I suspect they will be using some of the software I use to edit my videos. Great software, Davinci Resolve.
Whatever or however Tucker uses those tapes, he’ll be up to no good with them.
Hubs used to run into Joe at the train station in “Woomington” (that’s how we Delaware natives pronounce it.)
Ivy – I expect that entire group to take the videos to shift, splice, cut, and do things even my cat would not do, to create stuff that should be in a slaughter house waste pit.
What right did Kev McC have to give that footage to only Faux News or to anyone for that matter? This is not the only copy, correct?
Will Fluffy Carlson and his band of fascists try to rewrite/edit history? (Yes, BB, I’ve seen videos made with AI tech create scenarios with someone’s face. The potential is frightening.)
Since Faux seems against tRUMPsky, will they use it, as is, against him in a 2024 run?
Why did they need it? Why did they get it? It smells to high heaven.
BlueBronc, sadly, his audience will believe it because most will be seeing any of it for the first time.
My somber thought this evening of President’s Day has been with Rosalynn whose actual first name I didn’t realize-or-remember is Eleanor. What I recall is that when the Carters first came on the scene, we got tutoring on the proper pronunciation of Rose-a-lynn. This past weekend I heard mispronunciations, so maybe a new generation will benefit from correction in the next days or weeks. In the 80s, I read her unexpectedly moving autobiography, First Lady from Plains. Though I no longer have it on hand to check the reference, there is a line from her about her childhood that struck me. It’s to the effect you can’t know the peace and security that comes with a rainy day unless your livelihood is made by farming. I might want to see if I can obtain another copy.
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