Biden's surprise Ukraine visit signals commitment — and sends message to Moscow

The dramatic, unannounced visit to Kyiv by U.S. President Joe Biden, and the accompanying images of him and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy casually strolling outside the golden onion-domed St. Michael's Orthodox Cathedral, almost broke the internet in this war-weary country.

Social — even traditional — media were simply on fire.

Far away from the political theatre in the Ukrainian national capital, people in the winter and war-wasted provincial capital of Kherson were seen occasionally bent over their phones watching Telegram and Twitter videos of the event. 

Kherson was one of four regions Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered annexed last September and it was also the scene of a humiliating defeat for the Russian army, which withdrew across the Dnipro River.

Yet still under daily artillery and rocket fire, including a barrage of 76 attacks in the last 24 hours, the images presented with Biden's visit prompted an almost visceral reaction because it gave Ukrainians the kind of validation that a country and a people — who see themselves as fighting for their very existence — have long craved. 

Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesperson for the military administration in Kherson, said his first reaction was more practical and less high-minded. He hoped and prayed Biden's visit meant more air defence was on the way to Ukraine. (Biden did announce air surveillance radars as part of a new $500 million US arms package).

"We see the missiles flying over Kherson heading to other regions of Ukraine and if we could shoot them down here, that would help a lot," Tolokonnikov said.

He said he admired the fact the U.S. president showed the "bravery" to go to Kyiv while it was still under the threat of missile attacks, and that by itself has done a lot for the "morale of people" in Kherson and elsewhere along the frontline.

Foreign policy experts say the political message sent by Biden to Moscow was unmistakable and that it was bound to whip Russian ultra-nationalists, who often paint Zelenskyy as a stooge of the West and a messenger boy for NATO.

"That's the boilerplate kind of narrative coming from [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," said Dominique Arel, the chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa. "What has really impressed me is the extent to which it's completely the reverse."

He said the West has, in many respects, had to be dragged into supporting Ukraine by continuous political pressure from Kyiv and through "a kind of public shaming through social media and public opinion."

The scenes like those witnessed on Monday reinforce the profound social impact the war had on Ukrainians, who are beginning to see their place in western civilization as "a rampart against the threat of a real fascism, the Russian threat," Arel said.

Matthew Schmidt, a political science professor at the University of New Haven Connecticut and a former instructor at the U.S. Army War College, agreed and said he believes the visit signals "Ukraine's full membership in the collective Western value system."

He also said the political message sent by Biden will have just as important an impact at home with the American electorate, which according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, is growing tired — maybe even a little bored — by the war in Eastern Europe.