Blinken meets Zelenskyy in unannounced visit to Ukraine I DW News

Blinken meets Zelenskyy in unannounced visit to Ukraine I DW News

US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin has been meeting with Ukraine’s president vadir zalinski the unannounced visit to keev is aimed at emphasizing America’s ongoing support for Ukraine as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks Lincoln’s visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long delayed military aid package for Ukraine worth more than $60 billion let’s go straight over to our corresp Nick connley in keev Nick what can we expect from Secretary of State Lincoln’s visit well I think this is first off about trying to reassure ukrainians and their leaders that this is a you know a US commitment that is here to stay that this is not something that is going to waver that the US Administration hasn’t been distracted by events in the Middle East and that this is going to be something that allows Ukraine to at least stop Russia’s advance for now I think there’s going to be largely it’s going to be about talks behind closed doors maybe less in the way of big announcements but this is after all the first major US visit uh since those 61 billions in the aid were announced so this is you know a visit that comes off the back of a significant success you know within the US convincing Republicans to you know join in and vote on this and now they’re going to be planning how this money is going to be spent and how they’re going to get it to the front lines fast enough to really make an impact now blinkin is visiting Ukraine while Russian for forces are advancing in the hake region Nick what can you tell us about the situation on the ground there it’s pretty difficult to get a kind of upto-date handle on what’s going on lots of these places the mobile internet mobile phone connection is severely restricted or doesn’t work at all so there have been cases in recent days where villages were assumed to be under Russian control and then once the connectivity came back they realized that the Ukrainian Army was still there so you know from a kind of outside perspective not being able to access those regions it is very difficult but certainly Russia is pushing forward is taking more of these Villages very close to the Border it has to be said so it’s basically like a a long strip along the border and is now trying to take the city of V Chans which is only about 5 km from the border and uh you know there is a lot of confusion there was a commander who was swapped in recent days there was a lot of criticism that the Ukrainian response wasn’t organized enough wasn’t coordinated enough and this is not something that came as much of a surprise we had top Ukrainian officials in recent weeks and months warning that Russia was planning to do this and yet the response was still you know such that Russia was able to make a lot of progress especially in the first few days as you pointed out nick uh the secretary of state is there ju for the first time that a big a top Us official has visited since the Congress finally approved that military aid that Aid was held up in Congress for months how much did that delay affect Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself Nick well I think certainly in the East where you’ve got that kind of positional Warfare uh avva basically you know was uh given up or the ukrainians retreated from adka largely because they just didn’t have the Firepower to match what the Russians were throwing at that City and you’ve had top us officials admitting that basically had us a come earlier then a would probably still be in Ukrainian hands um I think we’ve seen the same picture when you look at air defenses U recent statistics showing that Ukraine is able to intercept far fewer especially ballistic missiles and was the case a year ago because of low stocks of the Interceptor missiles I think if you look at the khar region now it’s a bit more of a mixed picture that is a question of you know Ukrainian military leadership of building minefields things they wouldn’t need Western help to be able to do and basically just controlling the situation and communicating properly I think you know there’s a lot of criticism within Ukrainian Society now for the political and Military leadership that basically lessons weren’t learned from the early phases of this war and that you know this wasn’t a situation that necessarily would have required us help this was just a question of you know competence and planning Nick thank you very much our correspondent Nick Connelly there in Ukraine’s Capital ke

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, today. His unannounced visit to Ukraine’s capital is aimed at emphasizing America’s ongoing support for Ukraine as it struggles to defend against increasingly intense Russian attacks. Blinken will meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and senior officials. His visit comes less than a month after Congress approved a long-delayed military aid package for Ukraine worth $60 billion dollars US.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/deutschewelleenglish?sub_confirmation=1

For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/
Follow DW on social media:
►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deutschewellenews/
►Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwnews
►Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwnews
►Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/dwnews_hangout
Für Videos in deutscher Sprache besuchen Sie: https://www.youtube.com/dwdeutsch

#Ukraine #Blinken #USSupport