In Ukraine, Blinken offers US support amid Russia tensions
KYIV, Ukraine — Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Ukraine’s president Thursday that the United States strongly backed his country’s sovereignty against Russia’s military aggression but also warned that the embattled country was under threat from “internal forces,” including powerful oligarchs who thrive on corruption.
Blinken also said that, despite Russia’s recently announced plans to withdraw many of the 100,000 troops it had built up along the border with Ukraine in an alarming show of force this spring, a clear military threat remained.
“Russia has pulled back some forces, but significant forces remain on Ukraine’s border,” Blinken noted. “And so Russia has the capacity on fairly short notice to take aggressive actions if it so chooses.”
Blinken added that the United States was “watching this very, very carefully.”
Blinken spoke at a joint news conference with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who effusively thanked the first senior Biden official to visit Kyiv since the departure of President Donald Trump from office. The former president ensnared Zelenskyy in a global scandal that the Ukrainian leader hopes to forget.
Asked whether efforts in 2019 by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had “set back” efforts to drive corruption out of Ukraine’s political system, Zelenskyy boasted about his reform record, then indicated that he hopes the matter is finished.
“Let’s not talk about the past,” he said. “Let’s let bygones be bygones, and let’s discuss the future.”
That may be difficult, given an active FBI investigation into Giuliani that culminated last week in a raid on his apartment and office. Federal agents were reportedly seeking evidence of his role in the May 2019 removal of the American ambassador to Ukraine, allegedly at the behest of Giuliani’s Ukrainian associates.
Blinken maneuvered around a question featuring Giuliani, but reminded Zelenskyy that “effectively combating corruption is one of the most important issues to the Ukrainian people, and is crucial to improving their lives.”
“There are powerful interests lined up against reform, against anti-corruption efforts,” Blinken said. “Those include external forces, like Russia, but also internal forces, like oligarchs and other powerful individuals who are pursuing their own narrow interests.”
Even as Ukraine struggles to flush corruption from its political system, partly fueled by a Kremlin seeking to destabilize its pro-Washington government, the country is fending off a Moscow-backed, pro-Russian separatist insurgency in the country’s east. Fighting in the region has claimed more than 13,000 lives, according to the United Nations.
To sustain that conflict, and to weather any new offensive by Russia, Ukrainian officials are eager for more military assistance and potential arms sales from Washington, which currently sends Ukraine more than $400 million in annual military aid.