Biden says he does not know if he will visit Ukraine
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The White House has said Mr Joe Biden is not likely to go.
PHOTO: AFP
PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE (REUTERS) - US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday (April 19) that he does not know if he will travel to Kyiv after Ukraine's wartime leader called on him to visit.
"The answer is, I don't know," Mr Biden said when asked by reporters at an event in New Hampshire whether he would visit the Ukrainian capital.
Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky said in a CNN interview aired on Sunday that he wanted Mr Biden to visit and expected that he would.
The White House has said Mr Biden is not likely to go but that they are considering whether to send a high-ranking US official to meet and show solidarity with Zelensky as he faces an intensifying Russian attack in the east of the country.
Sources familiar with the situation have floated Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin or Secretary of State Antony Blinken as possible US officials to make the trip but that Mr Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris were unlikely due to security concerns.
"If and when that happens, we'll want to make sure its done in a very secure way," Mr Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview last week at the Economic Club of Washington DC.
Other Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, have made trips to Ukraine following Russia's invasion in February.
