Biden entered the country on Mother’s Day from Slovakia after she visited a processing center at the Vysne Nemecke border crossing and met with refugees. Inside Ukraine, she met with Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska, who has not previously appeared in public since the Feb. 24 Russian invasion of her country.

“I wanted to come on Mother’s Day,” Biden said before the start of a closed-door meeting between the two first ladies. “I thought it was important to show the Ukrainian people that this war has to stop and this war has been brutal and that the people of the United States stand with the people of Ukraine.”

Zelenska praised Biden “for a very courageous act” in coming to Ukraine.

“We understand what it takes for the U.S. first lady to come here during a war when the military actions are taking place every day, where the air sirens are happening every day, even today,” she said in Ukrainian through an interpreter.