Blinken, Austin Pledge More U.S. Aid During First Ukraine Visit Since Russian Invasion

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin have pledged more than $700 million in additional direct and indirect military aid for Ukraine on the first visit to Kyiv by high-level American representatives since Russia invaded.

About half of the money will go to Ukraine, with the remainder to be split among NATO members and other regional allies.

In addition, Washington will sell $165 million worth of ammunition to Kyiv, said the American officials, who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy immediately after their arrival in Kyiv late on April 24.

The trip, which Washington confirmed only after the two had left Ukrainian territory, came as the war enters its third month.

After the secrecy-shrouded visit to Kyiv, Blinken said Russia is failing in its war aims and “Ukraine is succeeding.”

The United States has sent some $4 billion in military aid since President Joe Biden’s term began last year, and already announced a new $800 million aid package last week.

Blinken, speaking to reporters near the Polish-Ukrainian border, said he and Austin traveled by train from Poland into Ukraine.

He said the visit to Kyiv was an opportunity to directly demonstrate “our strong ongoing support for the Ukrainian government.”

Austin, in turn, said the visit to Kyiv was “very productive, very engaging.”

Blinken has also said that Biden also plans to nominate current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, Bridget Brink, as the new ambassador to Kyiv, a post that has been officially unoccupied since 2019.

To Ukraine’s north on the Russian side of the border, a fire erupted early on April 25 at an oil facility, but no immediate cause was given for the blaze in oil storage tanks.

NASA satellites that track fires showed something burning at coordinates that corresponded to a Rosneft facility some 110 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border. Moscow has previously blamed Ukraine for attacks on the Russian region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine.

As Ukrainians marked a somber Easter, Russian forces showed no sign of easing attacks.

Five civilians were killed and another five wounded in Donetsk on April 24, the besieged eastern region’s Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Authorities also reported a death in northeastern Kharkiv.

Russian forces sought to capture Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, shelling parts of the capital and sending hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing the city. However, the Russian forces retreated after facing strong resistance.

The Kremlin is now refocusing its military campaign on capturing the Donbas in the east.

However, Moscow has only achieved minor advances since shifting its military focus on completely occupying eastern Ukraine, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in its regular bulletin on April 25.

“Russia has made minor advances in some areas since shifting its focus to fully occupying the Donbas, it tweeted on April 25. “Without sufficient logistical and combat support enablers in place, Russia has yet to achieve a significant breakthrough,” it said.

Russian forces have continued to press their attacks on the besieged port city of Mariupol.

Russia has largely reduced Mariupol to rubble as it seeks to crush the last vestiges of resistance holed up at the massive local steel plant.

In the strategic Black Sea port of Odesa, government officials said a Russian missile strike hit a military facility and two residential buildings, killing at least five people and injuring 18, although the reports could not immediately be confirmed.

The Ukrainian presidential office said a three-month-old child was among those killed.

In the eastern Donetsk region, the governor said two children were killed on April 24 in shelling by Russian forces.