The White House strongly hinted Friday that President Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the G-7 in Hiroshima, Japan.
Biden flew to Japan on Wednesday, and Zelensky’s chief of staff announced that the Ukrainian leader would too travel to meet with Biden and other world leaders, though the White House had not formally addressed the report until Friday night.
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National security adviser Jake Sullivan briefed reporters on the remainder of Biden’s trip Friday night and claimed it’s a “safe bet” Biden will meet with Zelensky one on one, though Sullivan stopped short of making a “formal announcement.”
“The president looks forward to the opportunity to be able to sit down face to face with President Zelensky,” he said. “In terms of how he’s getting here, I’ll leave that to the Ukrainians to share. I will say the United States was not the party, the country that flew him here.”
The president last met with Zelensky during a surprise trip to Ukraine in February that commemorated the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion.
Biden and the other G-7 leaders announced a new tranche of sanctions and other measures during the summit aimed at degrading Russia’s financial and material ability to wage war in Ukraine. The new package targeted nearly 400 entities.
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The United States also plans to soon begin training Ukrainian pilots on U.S. F-16 fighter jets, paving the way for their eventual transfer in late 2023 or early 2024. Biden had previously rejected the transfer of fighter jets to Ukraine as an unnecessary, escalatory measure.
You can watch Sullivan’s briefing in full below.
