Ukraine Updates: Boris Johnson’s Visit Puts Pressure on Biden to Visit Kyiv
Where are you, Biden?
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a statement by visiting Kyiv and walking the streets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Johnson’s visit puts more pressure on Biden to do the same, especially since he avoided Ukraine during his Europe trip.
Live Stream:
Zelenskyy: “Tens of Thousands” Killed in Mariupol
Zelenskyy told South Korean lawmakers the Russians killed “tens of thousands” of people in Mariupol:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that “Mariupol is destroyed, tens of thousands people [are] dead but Russians are still continuing the military operation.”
Zelenskyy made the remark while addressing South Korean lawmakers.
“Ukraine needs various military technologies from airplanes to tanks,” he reportedly said, according to Reuters. “South Korea can help us.”
Mariupol officials have estimated that roughly 5,000 civilians had been killed, but warned last week that given the size of the destruction caused to the city the death toll could be in the tens of thousands.
The Mariupol City Council last week also accused Russian forces of relying on a mobile crematorium to cover up their alleged war crimes there.
Zelenskyy Speaks to 60 Minutes
Zelenskyy spoke to Scott Pelley for 60 Minutes in Kyiv. CBS published the transcript on its website. Pelley found Zelenskyy “buoyant, gracious, humble and brutally honest”:
Scott Pelley: In speaking to NATO, you called them weak. In speaking to the UN Security Council, you said, if you can’t help, you shouldn’t exist. Not very diplomatic of you. I wonder why you feel the need to speak so bluntly.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, translation: When you are [working] at diplomacy, there are no results. All this is very bureaucratic. That’s why the way I’m talking to them is absolutely justifiable. I don’t have any more lives [to give]. I don’t have any more emotions. I’m no longer interested in their diplomacy that leads to the destruction of my country. A lot of countries have changed their mind about Ukraine and about our people. But I think we’ve paid too high price for that.
Scott Pelley: What must the world understand?
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, translation: We are defending the ability of a person to live in the modern world. We are defending the right to live. I never thought this right was so costly. These are human values. So that Russia doesn’t choose what we should do and how I’m exercising my rights. That right was given to me by God and my parents.
God was hard to find on our visit to Kyiv’s northern suburbs which Russia occupied for weeks. Much of what we found will be difficult to watch. Behind St. Andrew’s Church there is a sandy trench not quite full of civilian residents of the town of Bucha. Ukraine stopped the Russians here, 45 minutes from the center of the capital city. The Russian retreat was so hasty, it seems there was no time to cover up the war crimes. President Zelenskyy visited Bucha two days before our interview.
Johnson in Kyiv
Vijeta covered Johnson’s visit to Kyiv on Sunday.
At a handshake distance. @BorisJohnson and @ZelenskyyUa walked through the center of Kyiv and talked to ordinary Kyivans. This is what democracy looks like. This is what courage looks like. This is what true friendship between peoples and between nations looks like. pic.twitter.com/ZcdL6NqNp2
— Defence of Ukraine (@DefenceU) April 9, 2022
Ukrainian Members of Parliament to Biden: Go to Kyiv
Ukrainian MP Kira Rudik invited Biden to visit Kyiv on national TV. She urged our president to walk Kyiov’s streets with Zelenskyy:
Rudik told “Fox News Live” on Sunday that the move would “really be a sign of solidarity.”
On Saturday, Johnson attended a surprise meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Johnson’s office said the meeting was a “show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people.” The meeting came a day after Johnson pledged another $130 million in high-grade military equipment to Ukraine.
Rudik called the move “uplifting” and “very motivational,” adding that “everybody admires Johnson” for the visit “because it was probably scary.”
“I know for sure that his security teams were advising him not to [visit] and he came in and did that,” she continued. “This is what the world is expecting from the leaders, to do the bold moves, to show Putin that for every strength there will be a strength. To show Ukrainians that people are supporting our courage with their courage. To show that for every threat, there are people who have no fear.”
Even Meet the Press wants Biden there:
"It was quite the symbol to see Prime Minister Boris Johnson walking the streets of Kyiv with President Zelenskyy. It raises the question: are we gonna see President Biden in Kyiv?"
NSA JAKE SULLIVAN: "Biden doesn't currently have any plans to travel to Kyiv." pic.twitter.com/yoS0IHoQRm
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 10, 2022
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Comments
Politics aside,
It would be the highest possible level of pure human stupidity for any sitting US President to go into an unsecured war zone regardless of the baiting strategy.
I don’t think Boris is too smart or he would not have gone there either.
Wont get any argument from me
Von Der Loyon went there.
and nobody cared
@taurus the judge
The point is that she is as stupid as Boris.
Miracles do happen, I actually agree with Taurus on something
Far too many people keep underestimating Boris.
He plays the buffoon, he makes what for anybody else would be career ending mistakes and he survives anyway. His political instincts are astonishingly good, he has charm and he’s successfully made his way to the top office in the UK.
And stayed there.
I despise his ‘net zero’ policies, hate the lack of progress on NI and on immigration and regret the way some aspects of the pandemic were handled, but it would be dangerously naive to treat him as anything other than extremely smart.
He stayed there because he is held up by the rest of toffs, All he does is lie and obfuscate until the media cycle ends. That’s it, no competence just sticks his fingers in his ears, lies, lies some more and then pretends he hasn’t lied. The only reason he got the job was because he flied the Brexit flag with his usual inept bluster. Of course the Brexit crowd are far too entrenched to admit that they messed up massively and the leadership never cared because they already had dual French passports and millionaire investment portfolios from daddy.
Yeah, we expect forthright and honest analysis from you….thanks for a block of text on my screen to ignore. Might as well be an ad.
It doesn’t matter how much pressure is put on Biden, he can’t do the impossible. He is already being extended far beyond his limited capabilities. He is just not up to the job and it tells.
This too, LOL
“extended far beyond his limited capabilities”?? That also describes his DEPENDS!! And what good would it do for HIDDEN BIDEN to visit Ukraine? He barely knows where he is at ANY given point in time! He probably thinks that FAKE White House is real – just like it’s “real” that he received 81 million votes!! LAUGHING MATTERS all around!
Biden to Kiev? Dear Lord NO! He might speak some words.
With work, they will come out in proper order.
The White House puts out a decoder to unscramble Biden’s words. I already got mine. This is what Biden said at his last new conference:
“Be sure to drink your ovaltine.”
“The White House puts out a decoder to unscramble Biden’s words.”
Which cereal, and how many box tops.
Adjusts tinfoil hat
What if the idea is to get him to do this incredibly stupid thing, and someone takes him out (it would obviously be the Russkies, right?). So, now we have a causus belli, Biden is removed from 2024 (to benefit the Dems), and Biden becomes a Kennedy-like martyr (to the ever-lasting benefit of the Dems).
Only problem with this conspiracy theory is What To Do With Kamala.
Maybe they get her to go instead of him?
(Added benefit there is they get to paint the Russians as racist, too.)
Tell me I’m crazy, in 2022.
Dangit, italics should stop at the end of “causus belli”.
Stupid lack of preview.
(Wait, preview works now? /cries/ )
no, I thought about that same scenario ( and a few others)
Thumbs up on that!
“What To Do With Kamala. Maybe they get her to go instead of him?”
I’d agree to seeing her put forth going into her second year in office. The Democrat voters should want to see her in action on the global stage being that it is “traditional” to put forth her as a nomination for President in 2024!
Send her to Moscow to see Putin and take the Willy Brown reset button and the war will be over.
I would have donned the tinfoil hat in 2012. Scary that what was thought of as kooky is now inside the realm of possibility.
My first thought, send Kamaltoes
The significance of her going could only be determined by the passage of time in ways that only pass with time.
Oh no! She recommends the president should be the one to go. But not to worry because if anything happens she is ready to take over.
She’s a little old to be doing her specialty. I think she should stay home unless it gets really bad.
Wow instead of finishing off the pockets of resistance left in Mariupol, and planning the next move following the retreat from Kiev and fall of Izium (sp) Russia will be withdrawing all of her troops back to the starting borders and will even pay for the re-establishment of the dams that inflicted artificial drought on Crimea when Biden visits Kiev for his photo-op…….
Could we restrict attacks on Biden to things he is at fault for instead of being outraged he isn’t doing a photo-shoot?
If this was a source of liberal outrage at Trump everyone here would be calling it the phony outrage it is.
We have inflation out of control, illegal immigration out of control, CRT and radical gender theory being taught in Kindergarten and Elementary school, looming food shortages, oil prices through the roof and we are outraged Biden isn’t doing a photo-shoot?
Ukraine isn’t even a nation critical to us economically diplomatically or to our national security yet we have made many very critical sacrifices on her behalf; and yes actual Ukrainians are grateful to Biden (see tweet from Ukrainian government saying no president has ever done more for Ukraine), and I am actually glad he isn’t doing a meaningless photo-op that would probably help his approval rating (photo-ops don’t change a thing about a war).
Sure…let’s forget “The Big Guy” had and presently has to do with Ukraine. Let’s forget the Left trying to fashion Biden into a “War President” to reflect on all of the disasters at home. As for your last paragraph….watch the world’s economies shudder as Ukraine’s agriculture goes under and a third of the world’s grain and fertilizer are curtailed in the Ukraine/Russia sphere .
Jesus christ stop calling Democrats the left, they arent.
Thank goodness Biden hasn’t tried that one.
Imagine the visual of Biden doing his Mr Magoo act. Shuffling down the street trying to keep up with Zelenskyy. Peering myopically around with that blank look on his face desperately attempting to figure out where he was, who he was and who took his ice cream.
Don’t forget sniffing the hair of armed Ukrainian girls.
Danny is at it again
Oh sure, let this pair of grotesque dwarfs cheerlead us into WW3. The people enthusing over this are the same ones who wear COVID masks alone in their cars, get monthly boosters and worship George Floyd.
Eight years since the Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring from Tripoli to Kiev, over two years with the current regime that disenfranchised, denied essential services, and with a Kiev-aligned military and paramilitary axis attacks Ukrainians. Why the empathetic response NOW (pun intended)?
Send Mittens or war hawk Liz.
It’s the Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring in the Obama world Spring series… send decaffeinated Joe right over.
Hasn’t he embarrassed America enough already. He’d just blurt out stupid stuff (room- temperature IQ, you know) that would have to be ‘walked back’