WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden said on Thursday that top U.S. officials are deciding soon whether to send a senior official to Kyiv in a show of support for Ukraine.
“We’re making that decision now,” Biden told reporters as he prepared to leave for a trip to North Carolina.
A source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday that it is possible Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin or Secretary of State Antony Blinken might go, but that neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris are likely to go.
U.S. officials began discussing whether to send a top envoy after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s successful visit to Kyiv last week to see Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskiy.
“If and when that happens, we’ll want to make sure its done in a very secure way,” Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview on Thursday at the Economic Club of Washington D.C.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason, Steve Holland and Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Diane Craft)
