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russia had paid for his political rise and for his political party. they had worked to install him in power. they totally controlled him. he was their guy. that was how russia controlled ukraine. they controlled the ukrainian president. they installed him in power and told him what to do and he did it. and russia, of course, didn t want ukraine to have better economic ties to the west. they didn t want ukraine to have any ties to the west. they wanted ukraine to only be tied to russia. and so when ukraine had the opportunity to sign on to this pro-european trade deal, russia didn t want him to do it and russia s guy in ukraine, this very corrupt, very compromised pro-russian president said he wouldn t sign that trade deal with europe. he said instead he would sign a knew one with russia. people in ukraine did not want that. they wanted to stop looking east. they wanted to look west instead. so in response they started protesting. in november of 2013. and a few months in ....
tonight with the context. from edinburgh, alex massie scotland editor of the spectator. bill browder, the ceo of hermitage capital management and long time critic of vladimir putin. and joel rubin, who served in the obama administration as assistant to the secretary of state. welcome to the programme. whenjoe biden spoke to vladimir zelensky on this day last year, there wasn t much confidence in washington he would be president for much longer, nor indeed that kyiv could be defended. yet here we are, a year on and not only is zelensky still there, but the us president was today standing alongside him, in kyiv. plans that involved extraordinary subterfuge and secrecy. on sunday night, as is usual, the white house issued the president s public schedule for monday, on which we were told he was leaving for warsaw at 7pm tonight. in fact, he was already in poland. air force one took off at 4:15 sunday morning, the press pool was left behind. and by late evening, the presiden ....
visit poland, wasn t it? that was due to be in the next couple of days. this is all ahead of the anniversary of the war on ukraine. let s get to nic, he joins us here at the desk. i mean, obviously, this was out of the blue because of the massive security concerns. traveling overseas, it s not the first time that the president has done this, traveling without full disclosure what s happening. very tightly held information. very important for ukraine that the u.s. president should go there. remembering it wasn t so long that president zelenskyy himself visited the white house. that was when the white house committed to tanks which was a big moment because it allowed and paved the way for other nations to commit their tanks to ukraine. so, looking for what was said, what was discussed, what was announced but the symbolism, of course, is there, president biden visiting ukraine just a couple days ahead of the anniversary, the first anniversary, of russia s invasion of ukr ....
warsaw, poland, where the president will be shortly. here s what we know. a very significant moment in the world stage. president biden met with ukrainian president zelenskyy during this unannounced trip. it comes just days before the one year mark of russia s brutal invasion of ukraine. this moment is highly significant. biden sending a strong message of support to ukrainians as air raid sirens were sounding across the town, indicating the risk on this trip. both leaders spoke about the weight of this historic moment. president biden, it is so important for us and all we are proud of it. thank you very much for coming, mr. president. it s good to be back in kyiv. i was telling the president, staff members on the flight from washington and poland and asked me how many times i ve been to kyiv. i had to stop and think. this is my eighth trip. much has changed. much of it bad. but also, we have stepped up in a way that few people ever have in their own defense. and i h ....
sidner in new york. this is cnn this morning. kaitlan collins is anchoring live in warsaw, poland. she has some new reporting. let s cabibegin with you, what you hearing? obviously, we are learning details about the details, what happened behind this visit. how the white house is planning this. it was obviously kept secret until president biden was on the ground. he was actually on the ground for some time before we had the white house confirm that he was there, but we re learning that it was months of planning that actually went into this. only a handful of aides from different agencies that were involved in this. obviously, they wanted to keep it an incredibly close hold, because it is such a sensitive visit. what we re learning from the white house is that it was last friday when president biden made the final decision that yes, he was going to be going into this active war zone, right around the anniversary of russia s invasion of ukraine. that s when he decided t ....