He will hold a long meeting with Biden and will later speak to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has arrived this Wednesday in the capital of the United States in what is the first visit to a foreign country by the Ukrainian president since the beginning of the Russian invasion of his country. He has landed around noon (six hours more in Spain) at the Andrews military base, in the state of Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington.
I am in Washington today to thank the American people, the President and Congress for their much-needed support. And also to continue cooperating to bring our victory closer”, Zelenski has expressed through his Telegram channel. “Next year we must return the Ukrainian flag and freedom to all our land, to all our people,” concludes his message.
During his visit, Zelensky will meet with President Joe Biden and will participate in a special session on Capitol Hill to address members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the meeting at the White House, which will take place at 2:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. in Spain), Zelenski and Biden will have “a prolonged meeting” in which key members of the National Security team and the Biden Cabinet will participate. Later, Zelensky will make a speech at a joint session of Congress demonstrating “strong bipartisan support for Ukraine,” as detailed in the White House letter. After his intervention, the Ukrainian president will return to his country.
Patriot System Shipping
The visit will coincide with the Biden Administration’s intention to send Ukraine a new defense aid package that will include Patriot missile systems, CNN has reported. The US government has approved this Wednesday a new package of military aid to kyiv – within which are the Patriots – valued at 1,850 million dollars.
Zelensky has demanded in recent months an improvement in anti-aircraft defense systems, a key instrument to face an offensive that Russia is also waging from the air, with coordinated launches of missiles at different points in Ukraine practically simultaneously.
The Patriots are an expensive system – around 1.1 billion dollars, also counting the missiles. The training to handle them usually takes several months, periods that would foreseeably be shortened in the case of Ukraine. The system’s radar can detect targets between 70 and 130 kilometers away, while each shuttle can carry a maximum of four missiles with a range of up to one hundred kilometers. This type of battery would facilitate the response against missiles and also against large drones.
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