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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Monday after a cover-up visit to Kiev that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is committed to winning his country’s war against Russia and that the United States the United States will help him achieve that goal.
“His mindset is that Ukrainians want to win and we have the mindset that we want to help them win,” Secretary Austin told reporters in Poland, a day after a three-hour face-to-face meeting with President Zelenskyy in Ukraine.
Secretary Austin said the nature of the war in Ukraine has changed now that Russia has withdrawn from the forested northern regions to focus on the eastern industrial center of the Donbas. Because the nature of the war has evolved, so has Ukraine’s military needs, and President Zelenskyy is now focused on more tanks, artillery and other ammunition.
“The first step to winning is to believe you can win,” said Secretary Austin. “We believe they can win, if they have the right equipment, the right support, and we will do everything possible të to ensure that this is ensured.”
The trip of secretaries Blinken and Austin is the highest-level American visit to the Ukrainian capital since the Russian aggression in late February.
They told President Zelenskyy and his advisers that the U.S. would provide more than $ 300 million in foreign military funding and approved a $ 165 million ammunition sale.
“We had the opportunity to directly demonstrate our strong and continued support for the Ukrainian government and people,” said Secretary Blinken. “This was, in our judgment, an important moment to be there, to have face-to-face conversations in detail.”
Secretary Blinken said the meeting with the Ukrainians lasted for three hours and discussed a wide range of issues, including the assistance the country needs in the coming weeks.
“The strategy we have set, the massive support for Ukraine, the massive pressure against Russia, the solidarity with more than 30 countries involved in these efforts, is yielding real results,” said Secretary Blinken.
“When it comes to the aims of Russia’s war, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding. Russia’s main goal was to completely subjugate Ukraine, to deprive it of its sovereignty, to deprive it of its independence. “This has failed.”
Asked what the United States sees as success, Secretary Austin said: “We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country capable of defending its sovereign territory, we want to see Russia weakened to to the extent that it can not do such things as aggression against Ukraine.
The two officials also said that President Joe Biden will soon appoint Ms. Bridget Brink to be ambassador to Ukraine and that US diplomats who left Ukraine before the war will begin returning to the country next week. The US Embassy in Kiev will be closed for now.
Ms. Brink, a career diplomat, has been serving as Ambassador to Slovakia since 2019. She has previously served in Serbia, Cyprus, Georgia and Uzbekistan, as well as in the White House National Security Council. The appointment requires confirmation from the US Senate.
Journalists traveling with Secretaries Austin and Blinken to Poland were barred from reporting on the trip until it ended, were not allowed to accompany them on their ground trip to Ukraine, and were barred from telling where in southeastern Poland they met with cabinet members upon their return. Officials at the State Department and at the Pentagon cited security concerns.
Secretaries Austin and Blinken announced a total of $ 713 million in foreign military funding for Ukraine and 15 allied and partner countries. Of this, about $ 322 million has been earmarked for Kiev. The rest will be split between NATO members and other countries that have provided Ukraine with essential military supplies since the start of the war with Russia, officials said.
Such funding is different from previous US military assistance to Ukraine. This is cash that countries can use to buy supplies that may be needed.
The new money, along with the $ 165 million sale of non-US-made munitions that are compatible with Soviet-era weapons used by Ukrainians, brings the total amount of US military aid to Ukraine to $ 3.7 billion since the beginning of aggression, officials said.
President Biden has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of genocide over the devastation and deaths caused in Ukraine. On Thursday alone, President Biden said he would offer a new $ 800 million military aid package to Ukraine, which includes heavy artillery and drones.
Congress approved $ 6.5 billion in military aid last month as part of $ 13.6 billion in spending on Ukraine and its allies in response to Russian aggression.
From Poland, Secretary Blinken plans to return to Washington while Secretary Austin will travel to Ramstein, Germany, for a meeting on Tuesday with NATO defense ministers and other donor countries./VOA
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