Blinken and Austin make Kyiv trip to meet with Zelensky
Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to the Ukrainian capital, where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials, making them the highest-level US officials to have traveled to the country since the Russian invasion began in late February.
While in Kyiv, Blinken and Austin met with Zelensky, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and Interior Minister Denys Monastrysky for an extended, roughly 90-minute bilateral meeting, the senior State Department official said.
Speaking Monday at a press conference at an undisclosed location in Poland near the Ukrainian border following his trip to Kyiv, Blinken told reporters that Russian attempts to “subjugate Ukraine and take its independence” has “failed.”
“Russia has sought as its principal aim to totally subjugate Ukraine to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence — that has failed. It has sought to assert the power of its military and its economy, we of course are seeing just the opposite, a military that is dramatically underperforming and an economy … as a result of sanctions that is in shambles,” Blinken said.
“We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene,” he said, stressing the US strategy of
As part of the resumed US diplomatic presence in Ukraine, diplomats will “start with day trips into the Lviv” and “will graduate to potentially other parts of the country and ultimately, to resume presence in Kyiv,” according to a senior State Department official.
Blinken and Austin discussed the Biden administration’s intention to provide $713 million in additional foreign military financing to help Ukraine transition to NATO-capable systems, according to the senior State Department official and a senior Defense Department official, as well as deliveries of recent US military assistance to Ukraine and the ongoing training for Ukrainian soldiers.
The office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a readout of the meeting on Monday, stressing the importance of the visit and saying the country “counts on the support of our partners.”
“We appreciate the unprecedented assistance of the United States to Ukraine,” Zelensky said, according to the readout. “I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position. To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it.”
Both officials briefed press who traveled to the region shortly before Blinken and Austin…
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