Biden in Ukraine to show support as China fears Putin could provide lethal aid a year after Russian invasion

President Biden arrived Monday for an unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital, a huge show of support for the country that the United States and its allies helped stave off The unprovoked invasion of Russia that lasted almost a year. Mr Biden was due to spend time in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy before traveling to neighboring Poland later in the day for meetings with other European leaders.

“I am in Kyiv today to meet with President Zelenskyy and reaffirm our unwavering and unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Biden said in a statement released Monday by the House. Blanche, confirming his first visit to Ukraine. since the start of the war.

Mr Biden’s visit to the region comes as the world prepares to mark a full year since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine – and amid concerns about first made public this weekend by America’s top diplomat that China could be on the verge of supplying arms to Russia to strengthen its assault on Ukraine.

Putin ordered the ground invasion and the start of a devastating aerial bombardment of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. He sent tens of thousands of troops across the border in an attack that appeared aimed at overthrowing quickly the western aligned government of Ukrainian President Volodymyr. Zelensky.

Putin’s forces vastly outnumbered Ukraine’s and for months the Russians closed in on the capital Kiev from several directions, illegally annexing Ukrainian territory as they went. Many expected kyiv to fall in just days, but a year later Ukraine is still fighting for survival.

Backed by much of the Western world – and most importantly, backed by US and European arms shipments that continue today – Zelenskyy’s troops managed to turn the tide and begin to reclaim territory in the second half of Last year.

What Putin describes only as a largely stalled ‘special military operation’ over the winter months, with both sides digging along a frontline that stretches for hundreds of kilometers in the Donbass region , in eastern Ukraine, from north to south of the country.

“When Putin launched his invasion nearly a year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong,” Mr. Biden said in a statement released Monday by the White House. “Today in Kyiv, I am meeting with President Zelenskyy and his team for an in-depth discussion on our support for Ukraine. I will announce another delivery of critical equipment, including artillery ammunition, anti-armour systems and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardment.”

Mr Biden said his government would announce later in the week “additional sanctions against elites and corporations trying to evade or fill the Russian war machine”.

The US leader’s trip to the region this week is not only aimed at reassuring allies that the United States will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, but also to convince the US president that it will is the right decision.

In the Polish capital of Warsaw, Mr. Biden was due to reiterate the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine just after his government formally and publicly accused Putin’s forces of murder, torture and rape during the war, the Vice President Kamala Harris saying over the weekend “there is no doubt” that Russian forces have committed “crimes against humanity”.