Joe Biden, visiting kyiv, promises more military aid to Ukraine | War in Ukraine
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Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky walk in front of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, Kiev.
US President Joe Biden paid a surprise visit to Kiev on Monday, promising new weaponry and “unwavering” support for his Ukrainian ally, four days before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion.
It is in the greatest secrecy that the American leader left in the night of Sunday to Monday from the United States to go to Ukraine. The White House did not specify how he got to Kiev, but all Western leaders take the train in Poland to reach the Ukrainian capital.
Once in Kiev , he announced that the United States would once again increase its aid to Ukraine.
I will announce the delivery of other essential equipment, including artillery munitions, anti-armour systems and air surveillance radars, assured the American president in a press release from the White House.
During a press briefing with his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, he mentioned $500 million in additional assistance, the details of which will be announced in the coming days.
“I thought it was essential that there was no doubt about the support of the United United with Ukraine.
—Joe Biden, President of the United States
Mr. Biden left the Ukrainian capital in the early afternoon. He is expected to visit Poland, one of Ukraine's main European backers, on Tuesday.
Ukraine is in dire need of long-range ammunition for its artillery and tanks to oppose a new Russian offensive and to launch its own assaults and retake territories occupied by the Moscow army in the east and south.
US President Joe Biden, left, shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Mariinsky Palace during an unannounced visit to Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, February 20, 2023. The report by our special envoy Jean-François Bélanger .
Mr. Zelensky thus welcomed the expected deliveries of American Abrams tanks, announced a few weeks ago after long procrastination and insisted on the needs of his army for artillery ammunition with a range greater than 100 kilometers. Washington has promised, but their number and the timing of their dispatch remain uncertain.
The Ukrainian head of state also confirmed that he had discussed with Mr. Biden about long-range armaments, a very important topic, as Ukraine needs such highly accurate systems to hit Russian supply lines and overcome its lack of men and armaments.
This conversation [with President Biden] brings us closer to victory, Mr. Zelensky said.
The two presidents took part in a ceremony near the monastery.
This first visit to Kiev by Mr. Biden and the first by a US president to Ukraine since 2008 follows those of many European leaders in the Ukrainian capital and that of Mr. Zelensky in Washington in December.
< p class="e-p">The Ukrainian president saw this as an extremely important sign of support, noting that the two leaders wanted to discuss ways to win [the war as early as] this year.
According to him, US military support for Ukraine demonstrates that Russia has no chance of winning.
The US president, meanwhile, hammered home that Russian President Vladimir Putin's war of conquest was failing.
Putin believed Ukraine was weak and the West divided, he noted, he just got it all wrong.
Aircraft alerts also sounded at a time when Joe Biden was on his side of President Zelensky, leaving a church, without causing panic.
They also gathered in front of a memorial dedicated to the Ukrainian soldiers killed.
The US President expressed his admiration for the resilience of Ukrainians: it is more than heroic.
For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba felt that Mr. Biden's move showed that no one is afraid of Russia anymore.
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Ukraine has faced an escalation of fighting in the east of its territory in recent weeks, with Russia hoping to break through the front to regain the initiative after humiliating setbacks on the ground. fall.
Vladimir Putin is due to deliver a major annual speech to Russia's political elite on Tuesday, an event expected to be largely devoted to the war in Ukraine.
Mr. Biden will be in Warsaw, Poland, and is also due to speak.
The master of the Kremlin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, claiming that the latter wanted to orchestrate a genocide of the Russian-speaking populations of its eastern regions.
But the offensive, which was to be lightning, quickly bogged down and, by the spring of 2022, Putin had to give up taking Kiev, withdrawing his forces from northern Ukraine.
At the end of the summer, faced with a Ukrainian army reinforced by very significant Western military aid, the Russians had to abandon the northeast, then in November the city of Kherson in the south.
< p class="e-p">Since then, the front has been largely stable, although Russian forces have redoubled their efforts in the east, particularly with a view to taking the town of Bakhmout, now largely destroyed.< /p>
Bakhmout, a peacetime town of some 70,000, now has less than 5,000 civilians. The fighting there has almost completely destroyed the city.
Observers and experts believe that Ukraine and Russia want to launch major offensives at the end of the war. x27;winter or early spring.
Russian forces have suffered heavy losses, although these have not been officially acknowledged and Moscow is now presenting the war as a proxy conflict orchestrated by the West against Russia.
Finally, China, an ally of Russia, has been accused by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to consider supplying weapons to the Russians.
Statements qualified as false information on Monday by Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, noting that these are the Americans who constantly send weapons to the battlefield.
