Blinken and Austin in Kyiv
US Ministers Blinken and Austin visited Kyiv on Sunday. They pledged another $300 million in military aid to President Zelenskyy. They also announced the return of US diplomats to Ukraine.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced further military aid to Ukraine after their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The US would provide more than $300 million in foreign military financing and sell $165 million worth of ammunition, the US ministers said.
Austin and Blinken announced a total of $713 million in foreign military aid to Ukraine and 15 allied and partner countries. Around $322 million of that is earmarked for Kyiv. The remainder, around $400 million, will go to NATO members and countries that have supplied Ukraine with important military supplies, US officials said. The new pledges bring total US military assistance to Ukraine since the start of the war to $3.7 billion, it said.
US wants to appoint new Kyiv ambassador
A new US ambassador to Ukraine will also soon be nominated and US diplomats who left the country before the war will gradually return starting next week, it said. Blinken stated that US President Joe Biden intends to appoint the current US ambassador to Slovakia, Bridget Brink, as the new ambassador to Kyiv in the coming days. The US ambassador post in Kyiv has been officially vacant since 2019.
Blinken and Austin were the top US officials to visit Kyiv since Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. The meeting with Zelenskyy took place on Sunday, his adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said on Ukrainian television. The visit took place under special security measures and was only confirmed by the US after Austin and Blinken left Ukrainian territory. Journalists accompanying the US ministers were not allowed to report on the visit until it was over.
EU considers sanctions on Russian oil
According to a media report, the EU is preparing further sanctions against Russia. “We’re working on a sixth sanctions package and one of the issues we’re considering is some form of oil embargo. If we impose sanctions, we need to do it in a way that maximizes the pressure on Russia while minimizing collateral damage for us minimized itself,” European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis told the Times newspaper.
Meanwhile, in Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, preparations are being made for an imminent attack by Russian troops. The Ukrainian armed forces expect an offensive in the coming days, the local military chief Oleksandr Vikul wrote in the online service Telegram. Multi-level defense lines have been set up and attempts are being made to evacuate civilians from vulnerable areas. Thanks in part to iron ore mining, Kryvyi Rih is an important industrial center for Ukraine. The city has repeatedly been the target of rocket attacks in recent weeks.
Fire in Russian oil depot
A serious fire broke out in a Russian oil depot not far from the border with Ukraine. The fire caught storage tanks in the city of Bryansk, civil protection told the TASS news agency. Firefighting work was in progress. Initially, there was no information about the possible cause or whether there was a connection to the war in Ukraine.
Videos posted online showed high flames from a distance. Bryansk is less than 150 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. In early April, Russia blamed Ukraine for a fire at an oil storage facility in the Russian city of Belgorod. Ukraine rejected this.
OSCE demands release of employees
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) called for the immediate release of four local staff in eastern Ukraine. They were arrested in areas of the Luhansk and Donetsk districts that are not under the control of the government in Kyiv. “They have been held without charge for some time and the OSCE and their families are not sufficiently informed about their situation,” said Polish Foreign Minister and current OSCE Chair Zbigniew Rau. The local staff remained in Ukraine after the departure of international observers.
