By Tamar Jacoby, Director of the New Ukraine Project
President Biden’s visit to Kyiv this past week was met with jubilation across Ukraine. Ukrainian friends messaged me with glowing thanks. A bartender who knows I’m American offered me a drink on the house. The president’s trip underscored what Biden has often said – that America will stand by Ukraine “as long as it takes.”
Nothing made this point more viscerally for Ukrainians than the way Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignored the air-raid siren screaming in the background as they walked across the square in front of golden-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral on Monday. For Ukrainians, air raid sirens are a weekly if not daily scourge, and everyone knows what it’s like to decide, should I heed this one or not?
