Washington, April 25 (Agency) US has now confirmed about the unannounced trip of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to Kyiv to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday. Washington announced the visit after the secretaries were out of Ukrainian territory. While in Kyiv, Blinken and Austin met Zelensky, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, and Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky for an extended, roughly 90-minute bilateral meeting, CNN reported citing a senior State Department official. During the visit, the US officials told Zelensky that US diplomats will return to Ukraine. The diplomats will “start with day trips into Lviv” and “graduate to potentially other parts of the country and ultimately, resume (their) presence in Kyiv,” the State Department official said.
According to a media report, Bridget Brink, who is currently the ambassador to Slovakia, will be nominated as US Ambassador to Ukraine by US President Joe Biden later on Monday. The post has been left vacant since early 2020 under Donald Trump’s administration. The US also reiterated its support for Ukraine and pledged more than $713 mn in military financing to help their war effort, state dept official said. About half of the money will go to Ukraine, while the rest will be split among NATO members and other regional allies, reports BBC. In addition, the US will sell $165m of ammunition to Kyiv. With fresh aid to Ukraine, US officials maintained that it does not mean the “US is getting directly involved”. “The President has been very clear there will be no US troops fighting in Ukraine and that includes the skies over Ukraine,” a defence official told US media outlets. “This visit does not portend actual involvement by US forces.”