In a rebuilt school that now serves as a temporary home for displaced citizens, Biden met with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, who has not been seen in public since the war began on February 24.
“I wanted to come to Mother’s Day,” Biden told his Ukrainian counterpart, two women sitting at a small table in the classroom of a former school that is now a source of temporary housing for displaced Ukrainians, including 48 children. “We thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war must stop. And this war was brutal.” Biden added: “The people of the United States are with the people of Ukraine.”
Zelenska, who sent a letter to Biden at the beginning of the Russian invasion, exchanged correspondence with her American counterpart in recent weeks, US officials told CNN.
“First of all, I would like to thank you for your very courageous act,” Zelenska said, speaking through an interpreter to Biden. “Because we understand what it takes for the first lady of the United States to come here during a war, when hostilities take place every day, where air sirens happen every day, even today. We all feel your support and we all feel the leadership of the President of the United States, but we would like to point out that Mother’s Day is a very symbolic day for us because we also feel your love and support during such an important day. “
The meeting of the two women included a two-way meeting behind closed doors, which lasted about an hour and took place at a pre-war school. The building has been turned into a refuge, in cooperation between the Government of Ukraine and the International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Migration Agency. Dozens of internally displaced persons now live in the building, in a landscaped property near the center of Uzhgorod.
Biden, who is three days after a four-day visit to Europe to spend time with refugee families in Romania and Slovakia, travels about 25 miles to western Ukraine from the Slovak border town of Vyshne Nemetske to Uzhgorod. The first lady is the last high-ranking American and the first member of President Joe Biden’s family to visit the war-torn country in recent weeks. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Minister Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv last month; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was there last Saturday.
The first lady spent the last two days in Europe meeting with humanitarian organizations and government officials in both Romania and Slovakia, as well as communicating with displaced Ukrainians in both countries, focusing mainly on the health and emotional well-being of women and children. .
Biden’s visit to Ukraine is the first time the first lady of the United States has visited a military zone since Laura Bush made a secret 10-hour visit to Afghanistan in 2008. Bush made his first visit to this active combat zone in 2005. Both of Bush’s visits focused on her interest in and support for Afghan women.
As second lady in 2010, Jill Biden accompanied then-Vice President Joe Biden on a trip to Baghdad, Iraq, during the July 4 holiday.
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