President Joe Biden’s surprise visit Monday morning to wartime Kyiv began in the dead of night at a military airport hangar outside Washington.
At 4:00 am (0900 GMT) Sunday—unbeknown to the world’s media, the Washington political establishment or American voters—the 80-year-old Democrat boarded an Air Force Boeing 757, known as a C-32.
The plane, a smaller version of the one US presidents normally use on international trips, was parked well away from where Biden would usually board. And a telling detail: the shade on every window had been pulled down.
Fifteen minutes later, Biden, a handful of security personnel, a small medical team, close advisors, and two journalists who had been sworn to secrecy, took off en route to a war zone.
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.
In this case, though, the usual pool of reporters, which for foreign trips would compromise 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—once allowed by the White House to publish details—that she and the photographer were summoned to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington at 2:15 am.
Their phones were confiscated—not to be returned until Biden finally arrived in the Ukrainian capital about 24 hours later.
They flew for about seven hours from Washington to the US military base in Ramstein, Germany, for refueling. 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, funneling billions of dollars of weaponry and ammunition.
