In Pics | Jill Biden latest high-profile American to visit Ukraine amid war, meets first lady
With her trip, the American first lady followed the path of prior sitting first ladies who also travelled to war or conflict zones.
Associated Press
May 08, 2022 / 10:29 PM IST
US First Lady Jill Biden made an unannounced visit to western Ukraine on Sunday, May 8, 2022, holding a surprise Mother’s Day meeting with her counterpart Olena Zelenska to show the United State's support for the embattled nation as Russia presses its punishing war in the eastern regions (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)
Jill Biden, second left, and Zelenska, spouse of Ukrainian's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, join a group of children in making tissue-paper bears to give as Mother's Day gifts at 'School 6' in the western city of Uzhhorod (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)
Biden traveled under the cloak of secrecy, becoming the latest high-profile American to enter Ukraine during its 10-week-old conflict with Russia. (AP Photo)
“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” the U.S. first lady told Zelenska. “I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.” (AP Photo)
Zelenska thanked Biden for her “courageous act” and said, “We understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day -- even today." (AP Photo)
Biden spent about two hours in Ukraine, traveling by vehicle to the town of Uzhhorod, about a 10-minute drive from a Vysne Nemecke, a Slovakian border village, where she had toured a border processing facility (AP Photo)
Biden speaks with Slovakia's Prime Minister Eduard Heger as she walks from Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia, towards the border with Ukraine, red line. (AP Photo)
Biden sits with Slovakia's Prime Minister as Capt. Frantisek Krusinsky, Priest from the Ordinariate of Slovak Armed Forces, leads a prayer in Vysne Nemecke, Slovakia, near the border with Ukraine. (AP Photo)
With her trip, the American first lady followed the path of prior sitting first ladies who also travelled to war or conflict zones. Eleanor Roosevelt visited servicemen abroad during World War II to help boost troop morale. Pat Nixon joined President Richard Nixon on his 1969 trip to South Vietnam, becoming the first first lady to visit a combat zone. Hillary Clinton visited a combat zone, stopping in Bosnia in 1996. Four years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Laura Bush went to Kabul in 2005 and Melania Trump accompanied President Donald Trump to Iraq in December 2018. (AP Photo)
