IN the White House is considering sending a vice president Kamala Harris to Eastern Europe to show solidarity with Ukraine, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
In addition to the Polish capital Warsaw and the Romanian capital Bucharest, possible options include visiting US troops stationed in Romania and traveling to the border with Ukraine, an area that has become a center of humanitarian emergency as people flee for safety.
Details surfaced on Thursday, Russia’s eighth day invasion of Ukraine.
With a huge armored column apparently sunk outside the capital, Kyiv, Russian forces turned to huge missile and artillery bombardments to increase pressure on Ukrainian cities.
A source said The hill that the sending of President Joe Biden himself to the region is not currently being discussed.
“The presidential visit is a heavier logistics lift,” the source said.
“The vice president has a smaller footprint and is historically more agile.”
Last month, Harris traveled to a security conference in Munich, where he met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and other world leaders to promise decisive US action if Vladimir Putin continues the invasion.
This week, she also spoke with European leaders, including the Polish and Romanian prime ministers.
During the talks, she “reaffirmed our ironclad commitment to NATO Article 5,” an official said, assuring Allies that the United States would defend itself if attacked.
“You can expect the vice president to continue working with allies and partners on these issues,” another official told The Hill.
The White House is considering sending Vice President Kamala Harris to Warsaw, Poland, and Bucharest, Romania, in solidarity with Ukraine and NATO allies and European partners.
The trip may include stops in the Romanian capital Bucharest and the Polish capital Warsaw, as well as a visit to the border.
Kamala Harris met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in Munich last month as fears of a Russian invasion grew
Ukraine claims that Russia has lost 5,840 troops since the beginning of the invasion, although these figures cannot be verified (pictured: Ukrainian territorial defense fighter examines destroyed Russian armored vehicle)
A destroyed tank is seen blocking a street with damaged houses in the background in the city of Bucha, near Kyiv, while the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, March 1, 2022.
In recent days, the United States has deployed an additional 3,000 troops in Poland and Romania.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken left on Thursday for a six-day trip to Belgium, Poland, Moldova and the Baltic states to help coordinate the international response.
Earlier, the Ukrainian president complained that the United States and the West had acted too late to protect his country from the power of the Russian military, and described how “the end of the world came” during a news conference.
Zelensky called for more help during a provocative event in his capital Kyiv.
He repeated his request for a NATO no-fly zone to protect its cities and troops.
And eight days after the war, he said he already had good lines of communication with President Joe Biden and other leaders, but complained that they had stepped up support only after Russia launched its invasion.
“It’s unfortunate that it started after this war started, but we have it. And my gratitude to [Biden] and his team. “We can talk often now,” he said
“The whole world is late with Ukraine in making decisions.”
Zelensky and his allies called on the West to tighten financial sanctions against Moscow as Vladimir Putin rallies his troops on the border with Ukraine to deter an invasion.
But the White House and allies only stepped up pressure after Putin ordered troops into Ukraine.
More support came Thursday in the form of sanctions against oligarchs and others in the Russian president’s inner circle.
Now his country is struggling to survive, Zelenski said.
“The end of the world has come,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the United States and the West acted too late to protect his country from Russian power, and described how “the end of the world came” during a news conference Thursday.
Pictured: Map showing the Kyiv region and the area occupied by Russian troops as they approach the Ukrainian capital
Ukrainian forces inflict heavy losses on advancing Russian forces as fierce fighting in Ukraine enters its seventh day, according to a spokesman for the nation’s General Staff (photo: Russian armored vehicles remain destroyed or abandoned on the streets of Kharkov)
After saying the world was too slow to act, he called on Western leaders to step up their support now with a no-fly zone that would ban Russian warplanes.
He said the world was too slow to offer support for Ukraine, and urged Western leaders to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine to ban access by Russian warplanes bombing civilian areas.
“We want a no-fly zone because our people have been killed. “From Belarus, from Russia – these missiles, these Iskander missiles and bombers are coming,” Zelensky said.
“I asked President Biden, Scholz and Macron… and I said, if you can’t secure a no-fly zone right now, then tell us when?”
The White House and NATO allies have rejected a move that would directly pit its warplanes against Russian forces.
Foreign leaders welcomed the spirit of Ukrainian resistance, which has been blamed for delaying or halting Russia’s offensive.
But that only doubled Putin and his generals.
Russia has accelerated the arrival of troops in Ukraine, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters, with 90 percent of the troops already in Ukraine.
More than 150,000 troops, along with tanks, planes, armored personnel carriers and missile systems, had gathered around the borders before the invasion.
The result was a day of fierce battle.
The deputy mayor of Mariupol said hours of shelling and siege by Russian troops had cut off electricity, food and water in his city.
Civilians help build makeshift barricades around Zaporozhye nuclear power plant to stop Russia from taking over
A damaged armored car was abandoned on the street after a shelling in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine
Part of the Karazin National University campus in Kharkiv was destroyed after being hit by a Russian missile that appears to have been intended for a nearby police or interior ministry building
“We are close to a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Sergei Orlov. “Russian forces are a few kilometers away on all sides.
“The Ukrainian army is brave and they will continue to defend the city, but Russia is not fighting with its army, they are just destroying areas … We are in a terrible situation.”
And officials in Kyiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv, said they had been fiercely attacked but remained under Ukrainian control.
A Pentagon spokesman told reporters that the invasion of Kyiv appeared to be stalled.
In the southern part of the besieged country, a news report shows that the Russians have taken the city of Kherson, but US officials say they cannot confirm its downfall on their own.
According to them, Russian forces have indeed approached Mariupol, another city in southern Ukraine, and are shelling the city.
The Russians also fired on Kyiv and Kharkiv, with more ammunition hitting civilian targets.
“They are obviously hitting residential areas. There is no doubt about that, “the official said.
The extent to which this is intentional – and intentional in this regard – is difficult for us to assess. But it is obviously happening.