Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the US secretaries of state and defence on Sunday night time in what was the highest-level go to to the nation’s capital by an American delegation because the begin of the warfare.
Zelenskyy’s final face-to-face assembly with a high US official was on 19 February in Munich with Vice President Kamala Harris, 5 days earlier than Russia’s invasion.
The secretive assembly with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin got here as Ukraine pressed the West for extra highly effective weapons and as Russia continued its marketing campaign within the jap Donbas area, the place Moscow’s forces are in search of to dislodge the final Ukrainian troops within the battered port of Mariupol.
Blinken and Austin advised Zelenskyy and his advisers that america would offer greater than $300 million in international army financing and had permitted a $165 million sale of ammunition.
Additionally they stated that President Joe Biden would quickly announce his nominee for ambassador to Ukraine, and that American diplomats who left Ukraine earlier than the warfare would begin returning to the nation this week.
Reporters who accompanied Austin and Blinken to Poland had been barred from reporting the Kyiv go to till the 2 males bodily left Ukraine, with American officers citing safety considerations.
Earlier than the assembly, Zelenskyy stated he was on the lookout for the People to supply outcomes, each in arms and safety ensures.
“You possibly can’t come to us empty-handed right now, and we expect not simply presents or some sort of muffins, we expect particular issues and particular weapons,″ he stated.
Whereas the West has funnelled army tools to Ukraine, Zelenskyy has burdened repeatedly that his nation wants extra heavy weapons, together with long-range air defence programs and planes.
The assembly happened as Ukrainians and Russians noticed Orthodox Easter. Talking from Kyiv’s historical St Sophia Cathedral earlier within the day, Zelenskyy, who's Jewish, highlighted its significance to a nation wracked by practically two months of warfare.
“The nice vacation right now offers us nice hope and unwavering religion that gentle will overcome darkness, good will overcome evil, life will overcome loss of life, and subsequently Ukraine will certainly win!” he stated.
The Russian army reported hitting 423 Ukrainian targets in a single day, together with fortified positions and troop concentrations, whereas its planes destroyed 26 Ukrainian army websites, together with an explosives manufacturing facility and a number of other artillery depots.
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