Biden dodges angry mob in Ukraine

Vice President Joe Biden backed out from appearing with President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine at a memorial ceremony in Kiev on Friday, when the Secret Service determined it “wasn’t a good idea” after a crowd became “unruly,” a pool report said.

“When Biden’s motorcade arrived on outskirts of what had become very large and somewhat unruly gathering, many chanting ‘shame’ at Poroshenko. … [U.S.] [S]ecret [S]ervice decided wasn’t a good idea for Biden to wade in,” according to the pool report.


At that point, the report said, Biden’s “[m]otorcade turned around.”

Biden, who has been in Ukraine with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, was in Kiev on Friday morning to participate in a wreath-laying ceremony for people killed in demonstrations earlier this year. However, a crowd that was first around 100 people, mostly elderly men and women, quickly grew at Poroshenko’s arrival. The pool report said there was “little apparent interference” by Ukrainian security for Poroshenko.

Biden later got out of his car and shook Poroshenko’s hand after the Ukrainian president emerged on foot. Biden’s motorcade then drove to another location a short distance away for a bilateral meeting with Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Biden eventually made an unscheduled stop to a separate memorial later in the day, according to a pool report. Laying flowers at the memorial, the vice president asked to be accompanied by Myroslava Gongadze, a Voice of America correspondent and Ukrainian, who is part of the traveling pool. Gongadze’s husband, an investigative journalist, was killed by government police at the location over a decade ago. The pair stood together at the memorial for about five minutes before Biden invited her to join him in the limo as they departed for the next stop.

Biden is in Ukraine as part of a five-day trip that began in Morocco and will end in Turkey. While in Ukraine, Biden is to talk to Ukrainian leaders about their election as they begin to set up a new government.