U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 24, 2022. (Credit: Courtesy photo)
By Gary Raynaldo DIPLOMATIC TIMES
WASHINGTON DC – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in capital city Kyiv yesterday. The two U.S. Secretaries traveled by train to Kyiv where they to met with President Zelenskyy.
“We had an opportunity to demonstrate directly our strong support, our strong ongoing support for the Ukrainian Government and for the Ukrainian people. This was, in our judgment, an important moment to be there, an important moment for Ukraine, for the war – an important moment to have face-to-face conversations in detail about the extraordinary support that we’ve provided: security, economic, humanitarian, as well as the massive pressure that we’ve been exerting on Russia, and then to talk in detail about how we carry that forward across all of those fronts.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
.@SecBlinken and I visited Kyiv yesterday to directly demonstrate the United States' strong support for the Ukrainian Government and the incredibly brave Ukrainian people. We felt it was an important moment to be there — in person — a chance to have face to face conversations. pic.twitter.com/qtKpD4nStN
— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) April 25, 2022
U.S. Defense Secretary Austin Said:
“So our focus in the meeting was to talk about those things that would enable us to win the current fight and also build for tomorrow. And again, a very productive discussion. We talked about security force assistance and we talked about training, and we also talked about the key things that we’re going to discuss in the session that I’ll conduct tomorrow at Ramstein with a number of ministers of defense and chiefs of defense.”
Ukraine has had “Success” Despite Death and Destruction
“We had an opportunity as well to talk about where this goes from here, with the success that Ukraine has had. It’s also true that Russia continues to try to brutalize parts of the country, and the death and destruction that we continue to see is horrific. But Ukrainians are standing up, they’re standing strong, and they’re doing that with the support that we have coordinated from literally around the world,” Secretary of State Blinken said.
U.S. Sends Another $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine,
Another $800 million in security assistance was headed to Ukraine, the Pentagon announced last Thursday as the Defense Secretary and Secretary of State traveled to Ukraine. Included in this package are 72 155 mm howitzers, 144,000 artillery rounds, 121 Phoenix Ghost unmanned aerial systems and vehicles with which to tow the howitzers.
More than $4 Billion in Security Assistance committed by U.S. to Ukraine
The United States has now committed more than $4 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden Administration, including approximately $3.4 billion since the beginning of Russia’s unprovoked invasion on February 24.
