His top national security spokesman denied there was a possibility the president would visit Ukraine in an interview that aired Sunday morning. The official White House schedule, released Sunday evening, still listed his departure for Poland at 7 p.m. No notice was given to reporters on Sunday that Biden was no longer in Washington. In Washington, however, the secrecy had to be maintained to actually pull it all off. Once the trip was on, US officials took steps to notify Moscow of their plans, an attempt at “deconfliction” meant to avoid unthinkable disaster while Biden was on the ground. The final decision was made in an Oval Office meeting on Friday evening, when Biden gave the final green light. Even as the small circle of White House officials looped in on the planning grew confident it was an achievable undertaking, the realities of sending a president into a war zone where the US had no control over the air space were daunting. That was in part due to the fluid nature of the trip itself. Every effort was made to maintain that position in the hour leading up to Biden’s surprise arrival in Kyiv. In the weeks leading up to Biden’s travel, he and top aides repeatedly shot down the possibility of a trip to Ukraine. Keeping Biden’s plans secret required extraordinary measures on the part of the White House.
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