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US officials make top secret visit to Ukraine


KYIV, Ukraine – Two top US officials, on a well-hidden trip, made a wartime cruise to Kyiv on Sunday, where President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is due to urge them to provide grant more aid to his nation’s fight against Russian invaders, a top Ukrainian official said.

The US government has gone to great lengths to keep everything about the trip of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III a secret until the men are safely removed from Ukraine, even if it is not. refused to confirm that it was happening. .

But it’s an open secret.

A day earlier, Mr Zelensky had revealed plans for the highest-ranking US delegation to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion two months ago. And in an interview that aired on Sunday, when the US government kept quiet, an adviser to Mr Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, said on Ukrainian television that the men were there.

“They’re in Kyiv now, talking to the president,” Arestovich said. “Maybe something will be decided regarding how they can help.”

Less secret meeting agenda: Ukraine begs for more military aid from its Western allies as it tries to fend off an attack that has devastated cities and left thousands dead. A Ukrainian lawmaker said it had sent “a strong signal to Russia that Ukraine will not be left alone in this war”.

Yes, Congress has approved $13.6 billion emergency spending related to the invasion, including weapons, military supplies, and one of the largest amounts of American foreign aid to any country over the past decade. The funds also cover the deployment of US troops to Europe. A few days before the visit of the Americans, President Biden announced an additional $800 million in military aidincludes equipment designed to help Ukraine fend off a Russian offensive in the east.

However, the highest-ranking US officials have not visited the country since it was invaded, even as European leaders have witnessed firsthand evidence of atrocities. violence of Russian soldiers on the outskirts of Kyiv.

As Ukrainians celebrate Orthodox Easter, the head of Ukraine’s independent Orthodox church, Metropolitan Epiphaniy, met in Kyiv on Sunday with two visiting members of the United States Congress, Tim Walberg in Michigan and Victoria Spartaz of Indiana, both Republicans.

“Now, we are celebrating Easter, which is about the risen Christ,” the municipality said. “We are sure that with his victory we will also have the victory.

But denouncing the Russians, he also endorsed the justifiable use of force in self-defense.

“In this tough fight,” he said, “spirit alone is not enough. You also need weapons.”

On Sunday, fighting raged in Mariupol, the eastern port city that has been doubled down by Russia after withdrawing its forces from the capital area, where it met fierce resistance. . A steel mill there, which Ukrainian forces are holding, has come under heavy attack, but it’s still under Ukrainian control – at least for now.

“We are preparing to leave the city because there is nothing left to defend,” Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, a Ukrainian commander, said by phone from inside the factory on Sunday. “We consider that we have accomplished our mission.”

With Russia’s new focus on seizing eastern Ukraine, a vast expanse of flat land, Ukrainian forces need more long-range weapons and the ability to move troops quickly, military analysts say. on land and in the air, military analysts say.

With long-range cannons, helicopters, armored vehicles, tanks, radar defense systems and dangerous drones flooding the country, Ukraine’s leaders say they have an opportunity not only to defend their land but also dislodge the Russians.

Mr. Blinken was the last senior US official to visit Ukraine when he stopped there in mid-January. The United States closed its embassy in Kyiv on February 14, and its diplomats soon left the country.

The Russian invasion began 10 days later, and as they tried to capture the capital in an initial assault, parts of Kyiv were hit by artillery fire and Ukrainian and Russian forces. fighting in the street suburbs of Kyiv. But Russia’s retreat from the area around Kyiv appears to have made the city far less dangerous than it was a few weeks ago, and Western leaders have taken the opportunity to show solidarity with Mr. Zelensky. .

It remains unclear exactly how on Sunday Mr Austin and Mr Blinken reached Kyiv, where Mr. Zelensky has stayed since Russia invaded the country.

Distance made air travel the obvious choice, but the Ukrainian government closed its airspace to civilian flights when the invasion began.

Other leaders who have visited, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have traveled by rail. But given security concerns, his trip was also shrouded in secrecy. Rumors of an impending trip by Mr Johnson circulated for days, but no news of the trip was made public until he was seen in Kyiv.

In March, Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Poland, where she expressed US support for Ukraine and its allies in NATO and the European Union. Former Mr. Blinken went as far as Poland’s border with Ukrainemet with Ukrainian diplomats at a crossroads used by hundreds of refugees for an hour.

Mr. Biden also visited a town near the border during his state visit to Poland on March 25, but did not travel through Ukraine. He met refugees and gave a speech in Warsaw tomorrow.

Previous visits by senior US officials to other war zones, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, are often not announced until the official arrives in the country – and sometimes not even long after. when they leave.

The White House has ruled out sending Biden to Ukraine, citing not only the risk but also Biden’s immense security requirements. Senior cabinet officials like Mr. Blinken and Mr. Austin were accompanied by smaller entourage.

On Sunday, as Ukrainians gathered to celebrate Easter were muted, the Russian attack claimed more lives.

Before dawn, two young girls, aged 5 and 14, were killed when their house in the Donetsk region, near the eastern border with Russia, was destroyed, according to the Donetsk Regional Military Administration.

Nearly 100 miles to the west, three Russian missiles crashed into the city of Pavlograd. The strikes damaged railway infrastructure and eight buildings and killed a 48-year-old man, according to local authorities.

In the eastern region of Luhansk, at least eight people were killed when seven houses and a police station came under Russian shelling, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Statements from state and local officials offer only partial calculations of the growing damage as fighting along the 300-mile front line in eastern and southern Ukraine intensifies. Fierce skirmishes have so far yielded little benefit to Russian forces, but the situation of civilians caught in the fire is getting worse.

The skirmishes once again hampered evacuation efforts.

Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to President Zelensky, told NBC “Meet the Press” that, despite claims from Russia that it had taken control of the port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian forces and civilians remained in the city. . Many soldiers were injured, he said.

“Today, we turn to the Russian authorities to open humanitarian corridors to civilians,” he said.

With the city in ruins, an estimated 120,000 people are surviving in what witnesses have described as barbaric conditions. Ukrainian officials on Sunday said Russian forces continued to bombard the sprawling steel plant where hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are trapped.

Ukrainian forces are ready to leave the factory and evacuate the city if they are assured of safe passage for themselves and hundreds of civilians, said Captain Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Battalion, who has fighter jets. has been hidden at the factory since March 1, said.

“We will continue to defend it until orders to withdraw from our military leadership,” he said. “And if we’re going to leave, we’ll leave with our weapons.”

Andrew E. Kramer reported from Kyiv, and Natalie Kitroeff from Mexico City. Report contributed by Marc Santora and Jane Arraf from Lviv, Ukraine; Michael Schwirtz from Mariupol; Matthew Mpoke Bigg from London; and Eduardo Medina from New York.



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