Insider Questions: How did President Zelensky get to Washington?
Extraordinary steps were taken to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from Ukraine to Washington, DC. This shows how important the relationship is to both countries.
After going to the front line in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky took an overnight train to Poland before getting on a US Air Force plane, which was reportedly accompanied by a NATO spy plane and an F-15 fighter jet.
Early this week, people started talking about the trip to Washington, but it wasn’t confirmed until early Wednesday morning when US officials were sure that Ukraine’s leader was on his way to the US capital safely.
The visit had been talked about for months, but the last arrangements were made quickly. The two presidents talked about it on December 11, and Mr. Zelensky was invited three days later. Once the visit was sure to happen, the final plans could be made.
Not surprisingly, no official information about the trip was made public. Security is tight when a president goes on a trip, even in times of peace, but the risks are even higher for a wartime leader.
Since flying over Ukraine is too dangerous because of Russian missiles, Mr. Zelensky seems to have taken a secret train ride through Ukraine to Poland. On Wednesday morning, he was seen at a train station in the border town of Przemysl.
Polish TV showed pictures of Mr. Zelensky and his group walking along a platform while a blue-and-yellow Ukrainian train went by in the background. The group then got into a line of waiting cars, which included black Chevrolet Suburbans, which are a favorite model of the US government.
Many leaders and officials from the West have taken the train to visit Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, but this was his first trip outside of Russia since the war started.
Not long after that, flight records showed that a US Air Force Boeing C-40B, which was thought to be carrying Mr. Zelensky, took off from Rzeszow airport, which is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the west.
Before the plane flew over the North Sea and into British airspace, a NATO spy plane checked out the area from above. Russian submarines are known to go out and check on things in the sea.
And a US F-15 fighter jet that took off from a base in England followed Mr. Zelensky’s flight for part of the way.
The plane finally landed near Washington around noon. It had been in the air for almost 10 hours, and the Ukrainian president still had a long way to go.
All visiting heads of state are given Secret Service protection when they arrive, but because Mr. Zelensky is the leader of a country at war with Russia, security officials were extra careful around him.
One senior official told ABC News, “We are very aware that Russia has assets in this country and might try to do something.” “We’re aware of what’s at stake.”
The trip seemed to go well, and by Thursday, Mr. Zelensky was already back in Europe. He posted on Telegram that he had stopped in Poland to meet his counterpart, Andrzej Duda.
He is now said to be in Ukraine, but American security officials won’t stop worrying until they know he is safe in Kyiv. “Both Putin and the Kremlin know he needs to go home,” an official told ABC News.
READ ALSO: Ukraine Is Facing Emergency Power Shutdowns Due To Russian Attack
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