“We’re making that decision now,” Biden said when asked if he would send a senior official to Ukraine. Asked who would send him, Biden returned to a reporter and said, “Are you ready to go?”
Since the withdrawal of Russian forces from the area around Kiev, a number of Western leaders have made their way to the Ukrainian capital to show support.
US officials had initial discussions about sending a high-ranking member of the administration to Ukraine, according to a source familiar with the talks.
While Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are unlikely to visit Kyiv themselves anytime soon, officials have discussed sending Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin or Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
However, the sources said that the decision is not over yet and that the visit will not eventually materialize.
“We are not currently planning a visit by the President of the United States to Ukraine,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. More importantly, she said, the presidential visit was the continued supply of arms and support.
“The most important thing for the Ukrainian leadership is that we speed up the weapons, we provide them with the assistance and the security systems they need, and that’s what our focus is,” she said.
During a last-minute visit to Poland last month, Biden told aid workers he would have liked to visit Ukraine to see the situation at close range.
“They won’t let me, understandably, I think, cross the border and look at what’s going on in Ukraine,” Biden said. The White House had said before the trip that they had not sought any visit to Ukraine.
Speaking Thursday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden would “love the opportunity to go to Ukraine to show solidarity with the Ukrainians,” and that the possibility was discussed before Biden’s trip to Warsaw last month.
Sullivan said the discussions included what kind of fingerprinting it would take to ensure the president’s safety. But he added that he was “not under any serious planning,” and declined to comment further on reports that a senior US official might visit Kyiv in the near future.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Natasha Bertrand and Betsy Klein contributed to this report
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