The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on Wednesday arrived in Kyiv to meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Polish leader's office announced.
The four join a growing number of European politicians to visit the Ukrainian capital since Russian forces were driven away from the country's north earlier this month.
"Heading to Kyiv with a strong message of political support and military assistance," Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda tweeted on Wednesday, along with a picture of the presidents next to a train.
The Polish president's office confirmed on Twitter that they had arrived in Kyiv.
The meeting will focus on ways to assist civilians and the military in Ukraine, as well as with investigations of war crimes, said a spokesperson for Estonian President Alar Karis.
It comes the day after U.S. President Joe Biden said Moscow's invasion of Ukraine amounted to genocide, while President Vladimir Putin promised Russia would "rhythmically and calmly" continue its operation and achieve its goals.
The four presidents' offices declined to provide details of the visit for security reasons.
Putin sent his troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 for what he calls a "special military operation" to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say Putin launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier planned to visit Kyiv at the same time "to send a strong signal of European solidarity with Ukraine there," but was not welcomed by Ukraine, he said Tuesday.
German Bild newspaper reported that Zelenskyy had rejected Steinmeier's plans to visit due to his close relations with Russia in recent years and his support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline designed to double the flow of Russian gas to Germany, which has since been suspended.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's intention to visit, on the other hand, was received well by Ukraine. A top aide to Zelenskyy said Kyiv Wednesday wanted Scholz to visit and pledge more arms deliveries, explaining a snub to Berlin's head of state.
Scholz is facing growing pressure at home to step up support for Ukraine in the face of the seven-week-old Russian invasion that has cost the lives of thousands of civilians.
Ukrainian presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych told German public television on Wednesday that Zelenskyy did not mean to offend Berlin. "I think the main argument was different – our president expects the chancellor, so that he (Scholz) can take direct practical decisions, including weapons deliveries," he told broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).
The German president has a largely ceremonial role, while the chancellor heads the government.
Arestovych said the fate of the strategic port city of Mariupol and the civilian population of eastern Ukraine "depends on the German weapons we could get," but that has not been promised. Time is of the essence because "every minute that a tank doesn't arrive ... it is our children who are dying, being raped, being killed," Arestovych said.
The German political class "has seen the terrible images" of the war, which he said recalled the destruction of Berlin in 1945. What the Russian army is doing in Ukraine "isn't any different."
