Why Joe Biden is the unsung hero of Ukraine

If the youthful and vigorous Volodymyr Zelensky is the model of a wartime leader, the man he embraced on Kyiv’s streets on Monday presents a stark contrast. 

At 80 years old, Joe Biden has spent much of his first term as US president fending off accusations - not always from his political enemies - that he is too doddering and gaffe-prone to lead. 

Of course, Mr Biden is not the president of a nation at war. But you can be sure that had Kyiv's forces crumbled, Nato fractured and the West retreated in the face of a newly-emboldened Russia, the blame would have been laid at his door. 

One year on, the report card reads quite differently. With a revitalised Nato, a diminished Russia and talk of pan-European Leopard battalions for Ukraine, there is a reasonable argument that Mr Biden has played a difficult hand with skill and vigilance.

The overriding concern for the White House since Feb 24 last year has been to avoid direct combat between US and Russian forces. The potential for nuclear war through miscalculation, accident or malevolence made that the number one priority. That has been achieved.

To ensure no roads led to that terrifying scenario whilst also sticking up for Western values, Mr Biden needed to thread that particular diplomatic needle - requiring nuance, understanding and a hefty chunk of compromise.

Preparations for the war began with Western leadership in question and Mr Biden’s credibility in tatters after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Months after the debacle, in Oct 2021, Mr Biden learnt from the top brass of the Pentagon, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that the threat of a full-scale Russian invasion was real.

Mr Biden was shown where the Russians would attack and was told it would be a “shock and awe” assault on the whole of Ukraine.

His fundamental position from then on was that the US must not do anything unilaterally.

Behind the scenes, work began to rebuild the trust of allies - and it was at times fraught.

European officials were still emerging from the diplomatic froideur of the Trump years. The spectre of the flawed US intelligence on Iraq still lingered.

Many simply did not believe that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, would invade. According to US officials, the UK was one of the few allies that did.

From Nov 2021, a top-level US diplomatic offensive was launched. The phones of allies buzzed with Antony Blinken, the secretary of state; Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary; and America's top general Mark Milley on the line.

“We started showing our allies that we were taking them seriously and incorporating them in our planning,” one former US defence official told The Telegraph. 

“We went on these roadshows with intelligence and told allies: ‘Look, this attack is going to happen.’

“They felt we were trusting them and that gave them confidence in us. It was like the Cold War again, when we were trusted. There was definitely a feeling like the US is finally back in a role that we remember.”

As the war progressed, inevitable fractures emerged as each ally brought its own national agenda to the table.

In April, Mr Austin held the first of what would be monthly meetings at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, which would become a key venue for allied discussions.

Later, as energy prices soared in Europe, concerns reached a frenzy in Washington - leading to a new burst of high-level phone calls.

The message was that sanctions were crippling Moscow and now was not the time to wobble.

In addition to navigating the divisions among allies, Mr Biden also faced differing priorities within his own administration.

The Pentagon, the State Department and Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden's national security adviser, sometimes had different priorities.

“There was a lot of internal debate,” said one former official. “What’s the end game, is it a forever war, do we give them the tools to get Russia out of Crimea, do we cut a deal now or let this play out?”

An early internal disagreement, both among allies and internally in Washington, came over the plan to send Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine.

As “decider-in-chief”, Mr Biden was ultimately swayed by the caution of his military chiefs and the idea was ditched.

Mr Biden later overruled those same advisers to send expensive Patriot air defence batteries.

Rows about tanks followed. On this occasion, Mr Biden relented to pressure from Mr Blinken to provide “political cover” for Berlin, which would not grant export licences for Europe’s tank fleet without the US.

Mr Biden made the decision based on his original premise - that keeping the alliance united overrode everything else.

“Biden is an old-school transatlanticist who understands doing the small things to show your leadership,” said Jim Townsend, former US deputy secretary of defence, and a fellow at the Centre for a New American Security.

“He is leading the allies, and the allies want him to lead.”

From the outside, the decision-making process - be it over long-range artillery, air defence systems or tanks - has dragged on, as if the policymakers were wading through treacle.

But to bring the international community of supporters for Ukraine to the position whereby many tens of billions of dollars have been sent or pledged to Kyiv, as well as convince Putin of the folly of any sort of repeat effort in a few years time, has been a remarkable achievement.

Certainly, there have been a few missteps - such as over the initial disagreements about Leopard tanks - but no stumbles, no gaffes that have turned differences of opinion into discord and division, much as Putin would have wanted it.

It is worth considering where the world could have been.

Had Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2020, how confident could we be that he would have built and sustained such a response? How interested would he have been in debunking the idea that might is right?

This war has a long way to go and there is no guarantee Ukraine will prevail in reclaiming territory illegally seized by Moscow.

The international community can take heart, however, in a mostly successful response so far, against steep odds, in the face of extreme provocation and against a backdrop of nuclear rhetoric.