President Joe Biden’s clandestine trip to Ukraine was the first time in modern history that a U.S. leader visited a war zone with no American military presence. The risks were considerable, but the symbolic and diplomatic value of shoring up support for a country ravaged by a U.S. geopolitical foe tipped the scales against caution.
The first logistical shift was jettisoning Air Force One — Biden disappeared into the sky for a planned visit to Poland on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing normally used for domestic trips. The president’s motorcade had left the White House at 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, February 19 and he would not be seen in public again until videos of him in Kyiv began to circulate the next day.
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