Former Vice President Mike Pence made a surprise trip to Ukraine Thursday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Coxnotour Russian attack sites, bringing the message that he would stand by Ukraine.

"I have every confidence that the day will come when Ukraine's sovereignty is restored, their territorial integrity is restored," Pence told reporters.

"We need to make sure we provide the Ukrainian military with what they need to push back on and defeat Russian aggression here," Pence said. 

After their closed-door meeting, Pence, the first GOP presidential candidate to visit Zelenskyy, expressed his unwavering support for Ukraine. Zelenskyy thanked the American people for their support and thanked Pence for visiting sites of some of the worst Russian attacks on Ukraine. Pence was also briefed on the current situation in Ukraine by officials, according to an adviser to the vice president. 

The former vice president visited Bucha, one of the towns that has seen some of the most brutal attacks of the war. He laid flowers at a memorial and saw the trenches. Pence was told the trenches would be left in their current condition as a reminder of the price paid by Ukrainians to defend their homes. "We are with you," Pence told one soldier, a message he reiterated throughout his trip.

"We are with you," he said to Ukraine Foreign Ministry Rep. Denys Ludchak upon his arrival. 

Pence also toured sites in Irpin that were destroyed by Russian forces and met with families before traveling to Kyiv.

An adviser to the former vice president said that he traveled to Ukraine with Samaritan's Purse, an evangelical Christian relief organization. Edward Graham, the leader of the group, was with Pence when they were briefed at the Center for Protection of Children's rights on human rights violations in Ukraine over the course of the war.

Ukraine recently began its long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia, and U.S. officials have told CBS News that progress has been slow and uneven along the 600-mile front line that stretches all the way from the country's northern to southern borders. Ukrainian forces are facing stiffer Russian resistance than expected.

The former vice president believes Ukraine must have U.S. support in its defense against Russia's invasion.

"The fastest path to peace is to help Ukraine win the war," Pence said in February. 

Pence and his wife Karen traveled to Ukraine in March 2022, also with Samaritan's Purse, and toured the Poland-Ukraine border, in the third week of Russia's invasion into Ukraine. At the time, he said that the Russian military had unleashed "unspeakable violence on the people of Ukraine."

Fernando Suarez contributed to this report.

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• Ukraine
• Russia

Musadiq Bidar

CBS News reporter covering the intersection between politics and tech.

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