The trip of Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin this Sunday to the Ukrainian capital is the first since the beginning of the war made by senior American leaders
In the midst of enormous security measures, including the concealment of the itinerary of their trips, the United States Secretaries of State and Defense, Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, were scheduled to meet this Sunday in kyiv with the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, to to show Washington’s support for Ukraine in the defensive fight it has been waging against Russia, whose president Vladimir Putin decided on February 24 to invade the country. Blinken and Lloyd must guarantee Zelensky that the US will continue to send all the necessary military aid until victory over Russia is achieved.
This Sunday’s trip to the Ukrainian capital is the first since the beginning of the war made by senior US leaders. “Our souls are filled with a fierce hatred towards the invaders for all they have done. But let’s not let rage destroy us inside, “Zelensky declared on the eve.
US President Joe Biden announced in the middle of the month additional aid to Ukraine amounting to 800 million dollars in weapons. At the airfield of the Polish city of Rzeszów, located 90 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, two US C-17A Globemaster military transport planes and several Boeing 747s from airlines contracted by the Pentagon with weapons for the Army landed precisely on Sunday. Ukrainian weapons that include heavy artillery, tactical drones, ammunition and howitzers.
The former US ambassador to NATO, Douglas Lute, told ABC News on Sunday that “new military aid from Washington to kyiv will help reduce the quantitative gap with Russia.” In his opinion, «Ukraine would already have as many tanks on the battlefield as the Russians». “The quantitative imbalance in tanks and artillery is beginning to correct itself in favor of the Ukrainians,” he added.
Pentagon sources assured last week that, in addition to the arms shipments, US specialists deployed on NATO’s eastern front plan to train Ukrainian soldiers in the handling of M777 Howitzer guns, the latest-generation artillery pieces already delivered to Ukraine.
Before the arrival in kyiv of Blinken and Austin, Zelensky spoke yesterday by telephone with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “I have had an important telephone conversation with President Erdogan,” the Ukrainian president said, noting that he had insisted on asking for his help in evacuating civilians from Mariupol. According to the Ukrainian Presidency, both leaders also analyzed the deadlock in the talks between Moscow and kyiv to achieve a cessation of hostilities.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced on Saturday the closure of his country’s airspace to Russian military or civilian aircraft carrying Russian soldiers to Syria. In kyiv, such decision by Ankara has been interpreted as the response to the bombing that Russian aviation carried out on Saturday against the port city of Odessa, which caused eight deaths, including a three-month-old baby, and 20 wounded, according to Zelensky. .
The Ukrainian Air Force claimed on Facebook that the missiles were fired from Tu-95 bombers. Two of the rockets hit a military installation and two against residential buildings. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba said that “the only goal of Russian missile attacks on Odessa is terror.”
The Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshuk, denounced once again yesterday that Russia continues to prevent the evacuation of civilians from the besieged Mariupol as it has not been possible to open any humanitarian corridor. “We are not asking, but rather demanding that the UN bring about a ceasefire and the opening of a humanitarian corridor to remove civilians from the Azovstal steelworks and from the entire city as a whole,” she declared.
The United Nations demanded this Sunday an “immediate” ceasefire in Mariúpol to allow the evacuation of the 120,000 civilians who are trapped there. “We need a pause in the fighting right now to save lives. The longer we wait, the more lives will be threatened. They must be allowed to evacuate now, today. Tomorrow it will be too late,” said Amin Awad, Ukraine crisis coordinator at the United Nations. kyiv again yesterday accused the Russian forces of continuing to bombard Mariupol and, in particular, Azovstal, the last focus of resistance in the city, despite the fact that Putin ordered the assault to stop.
Guterres travels to Moscow and kyiv
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow on Tuesday, where he will be received by Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and on Thursday he will go to kyiv to see Zelensky and Kuleba. Before these two visits, Guterres will visit Ankara on Monday to meet with Erdogan, who has emerged as the main mediator between Russia and Ukraine. As explained by the deputy spokeswoman for the United Nations, Eri Kaneko, the main objective of the secretary general’s trip is to find a way to “silence the weapons.”
The Ukrainian president reproached Guterres for traveling to Moscow before kyiv. In his opinion, “it is simply wrong to go to Russia first and then to Ukraine (…) it does not make sense,” he stressed during a press conference on Saturday. “The war is in Ukraine, there are no bodies on the streets of Moscow. It would be logical to go to Ukraine first and see people, see the consequences of the occupation,” Zelensky said.
On the other hand, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is making efforts to achieve the release of several members of the monitoring mission (SMM) stationed in Donbass and arrested by the separatist authorities, according to a statement distributed by the organization. “The OSCE is extremely concerned about the detention of several members of the SMM in Donetsk and Lugansk,” the note said.
The day before, the deputy chair of the British delegation to the OSCE, Deirdre Brown, said there were alarming reports that the monitors had been taken prisoner. She stressed that “they were not armed, their task was to report on the situation impartially and objectively.” The OSCE deployed a mission to eastern Ukraine in 2014, but its mandate expired on March 31 this year, after Russia accused the monitors of bias and failed to renew permission for their border work with the two self-proclaimed republics. All of them were ordered to leave the area and, in Lugansk, they were accused of “transferring classified information to foreign intelligence services”.
#provide #Zelensky #military #aid #defeat #Russia