When Joe Biden addressed the Ukrainian parliament just four days before he stood down as vice president, he managed to joke about the frequency of his visits.
“Mr. President,” he said to Petro Poroshenko, “I may have to call you once every couple weeks just to hear your voice.”
The 24-hour visit in January 2017 was the sixth he had made in office; his fifth as the face of Barack Obama’s policy to Ukraine following Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Those visits are back in the spotlight as impeachment investigations rock Washington. Congressional committees are sifting through President Trump’s dealings with Poroshenko’s successor Volodymyr Zelensky while Republicans punch back with questions about Biden’s work in Kiev.
1. July 20-22, 2009
Biden’s first visit came during the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency when the U.S. was looking to “reset” relations with Moscow, much to the concern of Russia’s neighbors. His first job was to reassure President Viktor Yushchenko that Ukraine would remain a friend.
“We’re working, as you know, Mr. President, to reset our relationship with Russia,” he said as he stood beside the Ukrainian leader. “But I assure you and all the Ukrainian people that it will not come at Ukraine’s expense. To the contrary, I believe it can actually benefit Ukraine.
“The more substantive relationship we have with Moscow, the more we can defuse the zero-sum thinking about our relations with Russia’s neighbors.”
2. April 21-22, 2014
Anti-corruption and pro-Western protests toppled the government of Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014. Biden arrived to see for himself the changes, meet embassy staff, and deliver promises of economic, energy, and governance assistance to a turbulent country.
He also urged Ukrainian parliamentarians to keep fighting for the ideals that had brought them to power.
“You have to fight the cancer of corruption that is endemic in your system right now,” he said. “You need a court system that not only you and your people but the rest of the world assumes can actually adjudicate fairly disputes among people.”
3. June 6, 2014
Biden led a U.S. delegation to the inauguration of Petro Poroshenko as president and promised $48 million in U.S. aid to help with economic and constitutional reforms.
“There is a window for peace, and you know as well as anyone that it will not stay open indefinitely,” he said after a meeting with the new president. “America is with you.”
4. Nov. 20-21, 2014
Biden made his third trip of a busy year in the week after elections. It was part of what officials said was an effort to encourage political leaders to rapidly form a new government and press on with anti-corruption reforms.
“You must be getting tired of seeing me as often as you do,” said Biden, before congratulating Poroshenko on peaceful elections and condemning continuing Russian aggression.
“America does not and will not recognize Russian occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea,” he said. “We do not, will not, and insist others do not accept this illegal annexation.”
5. Dec. 7-8, 2015
Biden was apparently planning to unveil an extra $1 billion in loan guarantees to help Ukraine’s economy rebuild but changed his mind en route to Kiev.
Instead, he rewrote the speech he was to deliver to parliament in order to reflect growing frustration that Poroshenko was moving too slowly on corruption.
“And it’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption,” he said. “The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform. The judiciary should be overhauled.”
It later emerged that in private he told Poroshenko that the $1 billion guarantee was linked to those reform efforts, including removal of Viktor Shokin as prosecutor general.
Critics have tried to suggest that Biden was motivated by Shokin’s investigation into Burisma, which counted his son Hunter on its board. But the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and other allies had the same objective, and Biden was repeating U.S. policy that had been set out by Washington’s ambassador to Kiev in the preceding months and was briefed by White House staff just ahead of the trip.
6. Jan. 16-17, 2017
At the time, White House officials said the trip was to reinforce U.S. backing for Ukraine while the world prepared for the inauguration of President Trump, who was expected to bring a pro-Russia stance to office days later.
“The vice president’s trip to Ukraine will underscore US support — and highlight his personal involvement in providing support — for Ukrainian independence, democratic development, prosperity and security,” the White House said.
During the trip he revisited the two themes that had dominated his visits.
“You’re fighting both against the cancer of corruption, which continues to eat away at Ukraine’s democracy within, and the unrelenting aggression of the Kremlin,” he told members of parliament, warning them that Moscow and its supporters were intent on a return to rule by cronyism.
“Russia over the last decade or so has used another foreign policy weapon,” he said. “It uses corruption as a tool of coercion to keep Ukraine vulnerable and dependent. So pursue those reforms to root out corruption.”
“I think the vice president’s message will be that it’s not enough to set up this special prosecutor for fighting corruption, that the Office of the Prosecutor General itself is in desperate need of reform,” said a senior administration official.
The vice-president’s keen interest in Ukraine, his frequent trips and phone calls to Poroshenko, attracted questions ahead of that trip.
During that same teleconference briefing, the senior administration official said it was one of a number of countries, including Iraq and the nations of Central America, that Obama had delegated to his deputy as part of a “team effort.” But he also acknowledged the Biden style of accentuating the personal in politics.
“And so when he is tasked by the president to focus on an area, he goes out of way to make sure that he has a close personal relationship with the leaders involved,” said the official.
