The US State Secretary Antony Blinken and the Defense Minister Lloyd Austin spend around three hours with President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his team in Kyiv.
Antony Blinken stated that following the visit as CNN reports.
"That was the prior goal of our visit. We wanted to concentrate on the work that should be done to revise the game plan that we have and on how we move forward in all the different directions of our efforts," – he said in Poland near the Ukrainian border.
"Russia wanted to rob [Ukraine – tr.] of its sovereignty, to take away its independence. It didn't work out, – Blinken mentioned during the press conference in Poland. – It aimed to prove the power of its forces and its economy. Of course, we are currently seeing the opposite. We don't know how the rest of this war will develop but we know that sovereign, independent Ukraine will exist for much longer than Volodymyr Putin."
Answering the journalist's question about what they saw on their way to the capital, Blinken said that they traveled by train from south-eastern Poland to Kyiv.
"So we didn't see much more than the view from the train window. In Kyiv we went straight to the President's palace," – he noted.
The US State Secretary also added that there was "no real opportunity to talk to ordinary Ukrainians". "We, of course, saw people on the streets of Kyiv – a proof that the battle for Kyiv was won," – he said. According to him, in some parts of the city, there were signs of "normal life".
"But it makes a striking contrast with what's going on in other parts of Ukraine, in the South and East, where russian cruelty does terrible things to people every day," – Antony Blinken stated.
The US State Secretary Antony Blinken and the Defense Minister Lloyd Austinvisited Kyiv yesterday and held talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government members.
According to the Office of the President of Ukraine's head Andriy Yermak, during their visit, the parties reached an agreement on providing Ukraine with 322mn dollars of additional military aid.