The good thing about wars of words is that, in general, they don’t result in anybody getting killed — but that doesn’t mean some remarks aren’t meant to slay. Shadowing the ferocious fighting in eastern Ukraine are rhetorical jabs among world leaders flying in all directions, the latest being a very public rebuke by Kyiv of President Biden’s recent off-the-cuff comments to the effect that President Zelensky “didn’t want to hear” American intelligence that pointed to an impending Russian invasion in February. 

A spokesman for Mr. Zelensky, Sergei Nikiforov, refuted Mr. Biden, telling a Ukrainian website that the claim “probably needs to be clarified.” From the Ukrainian vantage point, it was Ukraine’s Western allies, America included, that did not address the country’s apprehensions last winter. 

The sentiment was more fully expressed by Mykhailo Podoliak, a top advisor to Mr. Zelesnky, who said it is “pointless to blame the country, which is more than 100 days [into] a full-fledged war against a much more resourceful opponent, if key countries have failed to prevent the militaristic appetites of the Russian Federation.” 

It was during a fundraising event in Los Angeles last week that Mr. Biden waded into the what-if game with respect to who knew what and when ahead of the invasion that began on February 24. The president said American data left “no doubt” that President Putin planned to invade but Mr. Zelensky “didn’t want to hear it.”

Mr. Nikiforov said instead it was Ukraine’s “partners” who “did not want to hear us” when his country sought preventative measures like sanctions to deter Russian aggression.

In the meantime, Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, has some less than gentle words of his own — not for Washington but for Berlin. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Mr. Klitschko warned Germany against any attempt to “surrender” Ukraine to Russia. 

The outspoken mayor said that in his view, concessions to Mr. Putin could lead to a Russian attack on Germany itself: ”Kyiv was and remains the target. And not only Kyiv,” Mr. Klitschko said, adding: “Putin personally says that he claims all the territory that once belonged to Russia…. His interests do not end in Kyiv or on the border with Poland. I am convinced that Putin will go as far as we let him go. And Germany must not forget: Part of Germany was part of the Soviet empire.”

On Thursday, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is expected to travel to Kyiv along with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi. 

The Ukrainian capital being a relative oasis of calm in a country very much at war, the trip could be seen at least in part as one way to tamp down the rhetoric among what are at the end of the day strategic partners — at least until the next round.