President Joe Biden’s shock go to Monday morning to wartime Kyiv started at the hours of darkness at a army airport hangar exterior Washington. At 4:00 am (0900 GMT) Sunday — unbeknown to the world’s media, the Washington political institution or American voters — the 80-year-old Democrat boarded an Air Power Boeing 757, often called a C-32.

The aircraft, a smaller model of the one US presidents usually use on worldwide journeys, was parked properly away from the place Biden would normally board. And a telling element: the shade on each window had been pulled down.

Fifteen minutes later, Biden, a handful of safety personnel, a small medical staff, shut advisors, and two journalists who had been sworn to secrecy, took off en path to a warfare zone.

The US president is maybe probably the most always scrutinized particular person on the planet.

Members of the press comply with Biden wherever he goes — whether or not to church or worldwide summits. Each phrase he says in public is recorded, transcribed and revealed.

Additionally learn: $500 million in weapons, ammo for Ukraine, says Biden on shock Kyiv go to

On this case, although, the same old pool of reporters, which for overseas journeys would compromise 13 journalists from radio, TV, photograph and written press organizations, was reduce to at least one photographer and one author.

The reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui from The Wall Avenue Journal, revealed — as soon as allowed by the White Home to publish particulars — that she and the photographer have been summoned to Joint Base Andrews exterior Washington at 2:15 am.

Their telephones have been confiscated — to not be returned till Biden lastly arrived within the Ukrainian capital about 24 hours later.

They flew for about seven hours from Washington to the US army base in Ramstein, Germany, for refueling. Right here too, the window shades stayed down and they didn’t depart the aircraft.

The subsequent flight was to Poland, touchdown in Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport. This can be a Polish airport, however for the reason that Ukraine warfare it has additionally change into a global hub for the US-led effort to arm the Ukrainians, funneling billions of dollars of weaponry and ammunition.

– ‘Good to be again’ –

Up thus far, Siddiqui and the photographer, the Related Press’ Evan Vucci, had not seen Biden himself. That did not change on the airport or after they obtained right into a motorcade of SUVs.

Reporters touring with Biden usually go in motorcades, however one thing was very completely different about this one: no sirens or the rest to announce that the US president was headed to Przemysl Glowny — the Polish practice station close to the Ukrainian border.

It was already 9:15 pm native time as they pulled up at a practice. The journalists have been informed to board, nonetheless with out laying eyes on Biden.

Operating a route that has introduced untold portions of support into Ukraine and untold numbers of Ukrainian civilians fleeing the opposite method, the practice had about eight automobiles. The general public aboard, Siddiqui mentioned, have been “heavy safety.”

Biden is an avowed practice buff.

He loves recounting his years of commuting by rail between Washington and residential in Delaware when he was a senator, mentioning two younger sons after their mom died in a automobile accident. One in every of his nicknames is “Amtrak Joe.”

This 10-hour journey into Ukraine, although, was in contrast to any taken by a contemporary US president — journeying into an lively warfare zone the place, in contrast to presidential visits to Afghanistan or Iraq, US troops usually are not those offering safety.

The practice rolled into Kyiv with the rising solar.

Biden, who had final visited the Ukrainian capital when he was vice chairman beneath Barack Obama disembarked at about 8:07 am.

“It is good to be again in Kyiv,” he mentioned.