Zelensky set to ask for more help from USA
UKRAINE’S President Volodymyr Zelensky pressed the West for more powerful weapons as he prepared to meet top United States officials in the war-torn country’s capital, Kyiv, yesterday, while Russian forces concentrated their attacks on the east and the south, including trying to dislodge the last Ukrainian troops in the battered port of Mariupol.
Mr Zelensky announced the planned visit by US secretary of state Antony Blinken, and US defence secretary Lloyd Austin at a news conference held on Saturday night in a Kyiv underground railway station. The White House did not comment.
Mr Zelensky said he was looking for the Americans to produce results, both in arms and security guarantees. “You can’t come to us emptyhanded today, and we are expecting not just presents or some kind of cakes, we are expecting specific things and specific weapons,” he said.
The visit would be the first by senior US officials since Russia invaded Ukraine 61 days ago, although Mr Blinken stepped briefly on to Ukrainian soil in March to meet the country’s foreign minister during a visit to Poland. Mr Zelensky’s last face-toface meeting with a US leader was on February 19 in Munich with VicePresident Kamala Harris.
While the West has funnelled military equipment to Ukraine, Zelensky has stressed repeatedly that the country needs more heavy weapons, including long-range air defence systems, as well as warplanes.
The Russian military reported hitting 423 Ukrainian targets overnight on Saturday, including fortified positions and troop concentrations, while it claimed its warplanes destroyed 26 Ukrainian military sites, including an explosives factory and several artillery depots.
Most of yesterday’s fighting focused on the Donbas in the east, where Ukrainian forces are concentrated and where Moscow-backed separatists controlled some territory before the war. Since failing to capture Kyiv, the Russians are aiming to gain full control over the eastern industrial heartland.
Ukraine’s national police said two girls, aged five and 14, died in shelling in the town of Ocheretyne, part of the industrial region.
Russian forces also launched fresh airstrikes yesterday on a Mariupol steel plant where an estimated 1,000 civilians are sheltering, along with about 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. The Azovstal steel mill is the last corner of resistance in the city, which the Russians have otherwise occupied.
On Saturday, a three-month-old baby was among six people killed when Russia fired cruise missiles at the Black Sea port city of Odesa, officials said.
Meanwhile, Mr Zelensky has thanked the Prime Minister for training members of the Ukrainian military on UK soil.
Boris Johnson spoke to Ukraine’s president on Saturday, according to Downing Street. A No 10 spokesman said: “President Zelensky thanked the Prime Minister for the training of Ukrainian military personnel currently taking place in the UK.”
It comes after Mr Johnson confirmed for the first time during his trade trip to India last week that Ukrainian forces were in the UK.
More than 20 soldiers arrived last week for training on the 120 armoured vehicles that are being supplied to the resistance against Moscow, the Government said.