U.S. First Lady Jill Biden made a surprise trip to Ukraine at the end of her visit to eastern Slovakia on Sunday.
Sitting next to Slovak PM Eduard Heger, U.S. First Lady Jill Biden had ended her tour of eastern Slovakia on Sunday in a makeshift chapel in the border town of Vyšné Nemecké saying a prayer for the Ukrainian people and those helping them.
She delivered a message for Slovakia: “The USA stands with you,” before she and her delegation then crossed into Ukraine in armoured cars. The First Lady met her Ukrainian counterpart, Olena Zelenska, in Uzhhorod just across the Slovak border.
The White House had not said Biden would be going to Ukraine when it announced her trip last week.
Biden’s visit to eastern Slovakia on Sunday was no coincidence. “This Mother’s Day, I wanted to be with Ukrainian mothers and their children,” Biden tweeted minutes after leaving the border town.