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Four presidents, one day of warnings in Kyiv
Summary
On 13 April 2022, a visit by four European heads of state, a new US arms package and fresh Russian threats framed a pivotal moment in the war.
What did solidarity look like in Kyiv on 13 April 2022, seven weeks into the Russian invasion? It looked like four presidents, a new American arms package and a sharp warning from Moscow, all within the same 24 hours.
The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (Andrzej Duda, Gitanas Nausėda, Egils Levits and Alar Karis) arrived in the Ukrainian capital and met Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As reported at the time, they went to the Mariinsky Palace 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.
The delegation might have been larger. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had also offered to travel with the Polish and Baltic presidents, but Kyiv regarded the trip as unwelcome. The reason was believed to be his close ties with Russia in earlier political posts.
Weapons and a new threat
The United States announced a further $800 million (€740 million) in weapons, ammunition and other security assistance for Ukraine. The package included 11 Mi-17 helicopters, 18 155mm howitzers, 300 more Switchblade drones and radar systems able to track incoming fire and pinpoint its source. Some officials in the Biden administration had considered such steps too risky in terms of escalation only weeks earlier.
Moscow responded in kind. Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said US and NATO vehicles carrying weapons on Ukrainian territory were legitimate military targets. Separately, the Russian defence ministry said it would begin targeting Ukrainian decision-makers, including Zelenskyy, and command centres in Kyiv if Ukrainian forces kept attacking Russian territory.
The warnings arrived just as the four presidents were in the city they concerned.
Genocide, and the language of the war
The vocabulary of the war had shifted the day before. On 12 April, US President Joe Biden used the word genocide for the first time to describe events in Ukraine, during an event in Iowa. Zelenskyy called the gesture the real words of a real leader. He had himself first used the word on 3 April, describing the massacre in Bucha.
The remark carried beyond Washington. On 13 April, Colombian President Iván Duque, responding in an interview to Biden's description, said that what was happening in Ukraine was genocide and had to stop, calling it madness. His comments followed Colombia's increase in energy production to help meet Western demand after Russian supplies were cut off.
The front line
The diplomacy unfolded against continuing fighting. On 11 April, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces, described intense fighting and bombardment through the day in besieged Mariupol. Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that the siege could be lifted with the right military weapons. The same day he said Mariupol had been completely destroyed, with a death toll in the tens of thousands.
On 12 April, a five-hour battle took place in the Polohy district, where Ukrainian forces were trying to retake territory. Units of a local territorial defence brigade took part of the district but were forced back by Russian reinforcements, according to Col. Ivan Arefiev, spokesman for the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration.
Also on 12 April, Viktor Medvedchuk, described as a key pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and oligarch, was detained in a Security Service of Ukraine special operation, Zelenskyy announced on Telegram. Zelenskyy said he planned to use Medvedchuk in a future exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
A day that joined three tracks
Taken together, 13 April 2022 brought together political visits, military supply and threats. Eastern European leaders appeared in Kyiv in person; Washington widened the range of equipment it was prepared to send; and Moscow answered with warnings aimed at both the arms shipments and Ukraine's leadership. The fighting at Mariupol and in Zaporizhzhia region continued in parallel.
