Kyiv, April 25 (Representative) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday thanked the US for its “unprecedented assistance” during the war with Russia following the three hour-long meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. The Ukrainian President said, “I would like to thank President (Joe) Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position. To thank all the American people, as well as the Congress for their bicameral and bipartisan support. We see it. We feel it. “We understand what the next steps on this track should be. And we count on the support of our partners.” During the meeting, the leaders also discussed strengthening US sanctions on Russia. CNN quoted Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as saying from an undisclosed location in Poland near the Ukrainian border that the US believes Ukraine can win the war against Russia with “the right equipment and the right support”. He said, “In terms of their ability to win – the first step in winning is believing that you can win.
And so, they believe that we can win. We believe that we – they – can win, if they have the right equipment, the right support, and we’re going to do everything we can and continue to do everything we can.” Blinken said that Russia continues to try to brutalise parts of Ukraine, but Ukrainians are standing strong… Moscow is failing in its war aims while Ukraine is succeeding, reports BBC. “The bottom line is this. We don’t how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene. And our support for Ukraine going forward will continue and it will continue until we see final success.” He further said, “We wanted to focus on the work that needed to be done in looking at the game plan that we have, how we’re moving forward across all of these different lines of effort. “So we didn’t see a lot except looking out the train window. In Kyiv itself, we went right to the presidential palace.” He further said that though “there wasn’t much of an opportunity to talk to average Ukrainians”, there were signs of “normal life” in parts of the city.
He said, “We certainly saw people on the streets in Kyiv — evidence of the fact that the battle for Kyiv was won. “But that’s in stark contrast to what’s going on in other parts of Ukraine, in the south and the east, where the Russian brutality is doing horrific things to people every single day.” According to CNN, Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Zelensky, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and Interior Minister Denys Monastrysky for an extended bilateral meeting. On the return of US diplomats to Ukraine, Blinken said diplomats will be back in Ukraine “starting next week”. “They’ll then start the process of looking at how we actually reopen the embassy itself in Kyiv.” He added that the US President will nominate Bridget Brink as the US Ambassador to Ukraine.