this historic fight. we hope that this year the 2023 will become a year of victory, this unprovoked and criminal, russia s waragainst ukraine and against the whole world. in other news, the family of nicola bulley describe their agony as police find a body in the river near the place she went missing. scotland s finance secretary, kate forbes, becomes the third candidate to enter the leadership contest to replace nicola sturgeon as first minister. bbc analysis shows that some of britain s local bus networks have been slashed by more than a third. and after a tour of the uk, dippy the dinosaurfinds a new home in coventry. good afternoon. welcome to the bbc news channel. us presidentjoe biden has made a surprise visit to kyiv his first to ukraine since russia invaded almost a year ago. he met ukraine s president, volodmyr zelensky and both men visited a memorial for ukraine s war dead. at a news conference mr biden announced more military, political and financial support for
truly, remarkable moment. how have you felt, almost exactly one year later? one of the last things you have worked on was president biden going to ukraine, meeting with president zelenskyy, and again, it was you, and to other people, total, who even knew about this trip. to have the opportunity to be part of getting president biden into kyiv, so he could stand there, and show the world, kyiv a standing, ukraine stands, and we will stand with them as long as it takes. it was overwhelming. it was very overwhelming. i have worked on other trips before, but nothing that felt this impactful. it really felt like a moment where things came full circle. looking back over the last two years, of course, hindsight is 2020, from a communications perspective, is there anything you wish it was handled differently? sure. i wouldn t be candid if i
of the presidential palace in kyiv under bombardment and under attack and the call came in that president biden talked to president zelenskyy and said, i m here for whatever you need, just hearing the bravery and the resoluteness in zelenskyy s voice, that was a truly remarkable moment. and how have you felt almost exactly one year later? one of the last things you have worked on was president biden going to ukraine, meeting with president zelenskyy, and again, it was you, and to other people, total, who even knew about this trip. to have the opportunity to be part of getting president biden into kyiv, so he could stand they are in the show the world that kyiv stands, that ukraine stands, and we are going to stand with him as long as it takes it was overwhelming. it was very overwhelming. i have worked on other covert trips before.
russians and without any of the normal security capacity that would usually accompany a president. so we were heading into the unknown because this was unprecedented. the president was up much of the night not so much worried about his safety as he was worried about making sure that he would maximize his time on the ground with kyiv and that he would have the kind of conversations face-to-face with president zelenskyy and most importantly that he can say to the world from right there in kyiv that a year ago people were bracing for the fall of kyiv and a year later kyiv stands. ukraine stands, and america stands with kyiv and there is no more powerful way to send this message than to have the american president go do that. it was a mixture of deep anxiety and also a building pride about serving a president and being part of a country that is trying to support ukraine in its hour of need.