A steady stream of leaders from the Baltics to the UK have arrived in Ukraine to show their support for the president and their disdain for Russia.
Will President Joe Biden follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and show his support for a war criminal in Russia?
Biden's trip to Ukraine raises a lot of security issues, according to former Secret Service agents. It would leave the American leader in a wartorn country and highly vulnerable to Russian attack, without the US military control that has accommodated his predecessors' trips to conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, according to former Secret Service agents and others familiar with White House travel logistics
Insider was told by former secret agents and White House advance staff that it would be foolish for Biden to travel like that, even in a show of solidarity against Russia. In addition to risking lives, such a trip would also require US personnel and equipment that Russia would likely view as an act of aggression and the US has avoided entering.
Bill Pickle, a former Secret Service agent who once headed the vice presidential protective division, said that between the thousands of troops and Russia's disregard for shelling civilian targets, it's just too much of a risk.
You cannot control the environment. If the president goes, you have set yourself up for a lot of bad things.
It is a logistical nightmare even in peacetime.
The question of a Ukraine trip has lingered with the Biden administration for the past several days, despite comments that seemed to throw cold water on the possible presidential journey.
Biden said that the administration was making a decision. He replied "Yeah" when asked if he was ready to go.
The White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week that the president wouldn't be going to Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Biden to follow in the footsteps of other world leaders when he said that Biden should make a trip in a show of solidarity against Russia.
There are no plans for the president to go, so let me just reiterate that, Psaki said at the White House press briefing Monday.
There has been a long history of presidents visiting conflict zones. In the year before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln came under gunfire while visiting Union soldiers at Fort Stevens in Washington, DC. In the 21st century, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump all traveled to visit US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, with each trip involving secretive, weeks-long preparations, according to former Secret Service agents.
A former Secret Service agent told Insider that it could be in the pages of a Tom Clancy novel.
There was no chance of Russian spies slipping into Ukraine or a neighboring country under the cover of darkness. There are many challenges that a trip such as this would pose.
It would take weeks of advance work to get a trip done. Russia still has missiles in the air that menace cities like Kyiv and Lyiv that are far from the frontlines.
Charles Marino, who served as a supervisor on Biden's Secret Service detail during his vice presidency, said that advance planning at stake is when you don't control the environment.
Even though we have been to warzones in the past where the US was involved and in control, we never took anything for granted. It was important to remember that it was still a warzone. Marino is the CEO of the consulting firm Sentinel Security Solutions.
We are still targets. There is still a war. Why introduce a high-value US target without US military support?
The question of a Biden trip to Ukraine marks a turn in the expectations surrounding a White House. Questions have been asked about presidents visiting places where American troops are deployed.
While receiving security assistance from the United States, Biden would visit a country that has no American troops because his administration ordered them to leave to avoid a potential conflict with Russia.
Other European leaders traveled to meet with Zelensky before the UK prime minister's surprise visit. The first US officials known to have visited Ukraine since Russia invaded are Sen. Steve Daines of Montana and Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana.
Russia forces have refocused their offensive on eastern Ukraine and the city of Mariupol after facing unexpected resistance in the capital. Even with the withdrawal of troops from around Kyiv, a trip to the Ukrainian capital would risk exposing American officials to a Russian strike, which would raise the risk of inflaming the conflict and even sparking a third world war.
Brad Blakeman, a former White House aide who handled advance work for George W. Bush, said that Biden couldn't put a finger in Putin's eye without consequence.
It would be dice rolling. It is fraught with danger on many levels.
He said that the idea of Biden going to Ukraine should be dismissed.
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