![]()
You are again making us proud of you Joe! Keep up the good work Mr. President ! 👍
Biden deliberately contrasted the sense of then and now that his visit, just before the anniversary of Russia’s invasion, conjured.
“That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv,” Biden told Zelensky at a news conference flanked by the Stars and Stripes and Ukraine’s distinctive blue and yellow national flag. The event itself carried its own symbolism – it did not feature two leaders cowering in a bunker, but went ahead in an ornate room like any other leaders’ press conference in any other capital.
“One year later, Kyiv stands. And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” he declared. “The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you.”
Biden’s words might have lacked the poetry of “Ich bin ein Berliner,” or “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” But Biden’s visit instantly went down in history alongside two defining trips to divided Berlin by Presidents John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan that were flashpoints of the Cold War and each of which sent their own image of US resolve to the Kremlin.
Those events made clear that the United States stood with its Western allies for as long as it took to prevail over the Soviet Union. Biden’s visit was meant to give similar historic heft to his comment Washington is there for “as long as it takes” — though it’s unlikely that it will assuage fears in Kyiv and Europe that a change in president might weaken that US vow.
