U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have traveled to Ukraine to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials on Monday local time.
The meeting was confirmed by presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych in an interview on Ukrainian TV, as well as confirmed by Washington shortly thereafter.
The visit was made to show Western support for Ukraine and the cabinet secretary also promised new aid worth $ 713 million to the Zelensky government and 15 other allied countries.
About $ 322 million will be allocated to Kiev, while the rest will be divided among NATO members or other countries that have provided Ukraine with military supplies since the war with Russia began.
The meeting came as Ukraine urged the West to give it more powerful weapons in the fight against Russia in the Donbas region, where Moscow troops are seeking to drive out the last Ukrainian troops in the port of Mariupol.
In addition, the two US officials also said that Biden will soon announce his candidate to be ambassador to Ukraine and that American diplomats who left Ukraine before the war, will return to the country next week.
Russian troops have regrouped to try to capture more of the southeastern Donbas region, allowing leaders from Western countries to resume their diplomatic ties with Ukraine in order to impose new actions against the Kremlin.
