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Four presidents in Kyiv as Moscow issued threats
Summary
A look back at 13 April 2022, when Baltic and Polish leaders met Ukraine's president, Washington announced a new arms package and Russia warned of strikes on Kyiv.
What did a single day reveal about the state of support for Ukraine and the Kremlin's response to it? On 13 April 2022, the presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were reported to have arrived in Kyiv and met Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while Washington announced more weapons and Moscow issued fresh threats.
A show of solidarity in the capital
The visitors were Andrzej Duda of Poland, Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania, Egils Levits of Latvia and Alar Karis of Estonia. As reported, their visit included the Mariinsky Palace and was meant to send a strong signal of shared European solidarity with Ukraine and to discuss continued political and military support. The leaders also visited sites of alleged war crimes in nearby Borodianka.
German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier had also proposed travelling to Ukraine with the Polish and Baltic presidents. The trip was reported to be unwelcome in Kyiv. The reason given was his close ties with Russia in earlier political posts.
Washington adds to the arsenal
On 13 April the United States announced a further $800m (€740m) in weapons, ammunition and other security assistance for Ukraine. The package included 11 Mi-17 helicopters, 18 155mm howitzers, 300 additional Switchblade drones and radar systems able to track incoming fire and pinpoint its source. Some Biden administration officials had judged such items too risky in terms of escalation only a few weeks earlier.
The announcement followed a rhetorical step on 12 April, when US president Joe Biden called the Russian war in Ukraine a genocide at an event in Iowa. Zelenskyy described the gesture as the real words of a real leader. He had himself first used the word on 3 April to describe the killings in Bucha.
Colombian president Iván Duque, in an interview responding to Biden's description, also said that what was happening in Ukraine was genocide and must stop, calling it madness. This came after Colombia increased its energy production to help meet Western needs once all supplies from Russia had been cut off.
Moscow's warnings
Russia's reaction was sharp. Its defence ministry said it would begin targeting Ukrainian decision-makers, including Zelenskyy, and command centres in Kyiv if Ukrainian forces continued to attack Russian territory. Separately, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said US and NATO vehicles carrying weapons on Ukrainian territory were legitimate military targets.
The two statements arrived on the same day that Kyiv hosted four allied heads of state and Washington publicised the new aid, which gave the day its character: visible Western commitment on one side and explicit threats on the other.
The front and the wider picture
The days before 13 April had underlined how heavy the fighting remained. On 11 April, Zelenskyy said Mariupol had been completely destroyed, putting the death toll at tens of thousands. He also said the siege could be lifted if Ukraine had adequate military weaponry. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, reported intense fighting and bombardment in the besieged city throughout that day.
On 12 April, a five-hour battle took place in the Polohy district of Zaporizhzhia region as Ukrainian forces tried to retake the area. According to Colonel Ivan Arefiev, spokesman for the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, local territorial defence brigade units took part of the district before Russian reinforcements forced them to withdraw.
The same day, Zelenskyy reported on Telegram that Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and oligarch, had been detained in a Security Service of Ukraine special operation. Zelenskyy said he planned to use Medvedchuk in a future exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Why the day mattered
Taken together, the events of 13 April 2022 showed several tracks running at once: regional leaders travelling to a capital Russia had threatened, a US decision to supply items some of its own officials had earlier considered too escalatory, and Russian warnings aimed at both Kyiv and Ukraine's suppliers. The arms announced that day, together with the visit, formed the Western side of that exchange.
