WASHINGTON — The White House confirmed Monday that it gave Russia advance notice about President Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine to avoid an accidental military clash between the two nuclear powers.

“We did notify the Russians that President Biden would be traveling to Kyiv,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on a press call shortly after Biden boarded a return train to Poland from Ukraine’s capital Monday.

Sullivan said the Kremlin was informed of Biden’s travel “hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes” — though the wider public remained unaware of it for much longer.

“Because of the sensitive nature of those communications, I won’t get into how they responded or what the precise nature of our message was, but I can confirm that we provided that notification,” Sullivan added.

The trip to the war-torn country was carried out with intense secrecy after Biden gave his final approval to the itinerary Friday. 

Air Force One stealthily departed Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at 4:15 a.m. ET Sunday and landed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before traveling onward to Rzeszów, Poland, which is home to thousands of troops from the 101st Airborne Division deployed to reinforce NATO’s border in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

From Rzeszów, Biden motorcaded about one hour to the border outpost of Przemyśl Główny, where he boarded an overnight train for Kyiv — arriving about ten-and-a-half hours after departure.

Train travel is the preferred method for world leaders to visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, likely to avoid an accidental plane shootdown. In June 2022, for example, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi rode the rails together to Kyiv.

The airspace over Ukraine remains contested, with neither Ukraine, Russia nor their respective allies establishing supremacy over the year-long conflict. 

Only two journalists traveled with Biden from Washington — Wall Street Journal reporter Sabrina Siddiqui and Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci.

Siddiqui, Vucci and White House Correspondents’ Association president Tamara Keith, a reporter for NPR, were summoned to a White House meeting Friday by outgoing Biden communications director Kate Bedingfield to discuss the president’s plans.

Siddiqui recounted after leaving Ukraine that she was “sworn to secrecy about the trip and told to look out for an email containing instructions for an early Sunday morning departure from Andrews Air Force Base. The subject line would read: ‘Arrival instructions for the golf tourney.'”

Keith, who regularly champions the cause of press access, successfully pushed for more journalists to be allowed to cover Biden’s trip inside Ukraine — resulting in 11 members of the media joining Biden’s entourage in Kyiv, including a CBS crew assigned to capture pooled video.

When Siddiqui and Vucci arrived at Joint Base Andrews, the WSJ reporter added, their phones were taken by Secret Service agents and not returned until after Biden arrived at the US Embassy in Kyiv, the final stop of his trip. 

In all, Biden spent about five hours on the ground in Kyiv as a show of support ahead of the Friday anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

“One year later, Kyiv stands, Ukraine stands, democracy stands,” Biden said in remarks at the Mariinsky Palace, as his administration pledged another $460 million in military aid to Ukraine. 

“The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you,” Biden told Zelensky. 

Monday was the first time that Biden had traveled to Ukraine since the start of the war last Feb. 24, but he said it was his seventh visit overall, including stops when he was Barack Obama’s vice president.

While in Kyiv, Biden took the opportunity to rebuke Russian President Vladimir Putin, who expected to overrun the Ukrainian capital when he launched his invasion last February. 

“Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided,” Biden said as he stood alongside Zelensky, who made his own stealth trip to Washington in December. “He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now.”

“He’s just been plain wrong,” the president added. “One year later, the evidence is right here in this room. We stand here together.”

Putin is expected to respond to Biden’s “provocative” visit when he addresses Russia’s Federal Assembly on Tuesday, remarks that will include an update on what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation,” the TASS news agency reported. 

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, told reporters that Biden received security guarantees for his trip to Ukraine, but didn’t say who gave those assurances.

“Biden, having previously received security guarantees, finally went to Kyiv. He promised many weapons and swore allegiance to the neo-Nazi regime to the grave,” Medvedev said, according to TASS. “And, of course, there were mutual incantations of victory, which will come with new weapons and courageous people.”

The US president’s trip coincides with mounting skepticism of American aid to Ukraine among House Republicans and pressure for peace talks by some left-wing Democrats. On Sunday, several hundred protesters associated with anti-war groups and the Libertarian Party marched to the White House after speeches near the Lincoln Memorial by former Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).

Biden will deliver a speech in Warsaw, Poland, to a large outdoor crowd on Tuesday evening before returning to the US. During a similar address in March, Biden said Putin “cannot remain in power” — prompting an aide to quickly tell reporters he was not calling for “regime change,” only for Biden to say he stood by his original words days later.