Kyiv: Shortly after convening with Ukraine President, US Gen. Secretary Blinken and Defence Secretary Llyod Austin said that the Ukrainian president is committed to winning his country’s fight against Russia and that the United States will help him achieve that goal.
“He has the mindset that they want to win, and we have the mindset that we want to help them win,” Austin told reporters in Poland, the day after the three-hour face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy in Ukraine.
In their secrecy-shrouded visit to Kyiv, they informed that the U.S. would provide more than $300 million in foreign military financing and had approved a $165 million sale of ammunition.
Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry on Monday announced a ceasefire around the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol to facilitate civilian evacuation from the industrial area under sheltering hundreds since the war first began.
Ukraine has repeatedly pressed the West for more powerful weapons against Russia’s campaign in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow’s forces are labouring to dislodge the last Ukrainian troops in the battered port city of Mariupol.