Top US officials to visit Kyiv

O Blinken and Austin to discuss request by Ukraine for more powerful weapons

KYIV: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Kyiv today to discuss Ukraine’s call for more powerful weapons, two months after Russia’s invasion began.

The trip, announced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday, would be the highest-level by US officials since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on Feb 24.

The White House has not confirmed any visit by Blinken and Austin.

The State Department and Pentagon declined to comment.

As Christians in Ukraine celebrated Orthodox Easter yesterday, there was no end in sight to a war that has killed thousands of people, uprooted millions more and reduced cities to rubble.

Ukrainian officials said two children were among those killed in shelling yesterday.

“Usually, we would come to our churches with Easter baskets. But now, this is impossible,” Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the eastern Luhansk region, wrote on Telegram, saying seven churches in the Luhansk region had been “mutilated by Russian artillery”.

“We are all convinced that we will not be destroyed by any horde or wickedness,” Zelenskiy said in an Easter video message from the 1,000-year-old Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, praying God would “give endurance to those who, unfortunately, would not see the return of their child from the front”.

He told a news conference on Saturday that talks with his US visitors would cover the “powerful, heavy weapons” Ukraine needed and the pace of supplies that he said would be used to retake territory.

Ukraine said yesterday that Russian forces were bombarding the steel works in Mariupol where Ukrainian defenders were holding out, days after Moscow declared victory in the southern port city and said it did not need to take the plant.

“The place where our civilians and military are located is shelled with heavy air bombs and artillery,” senior Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter, calling for “a real Easter truce in Mariupol”.

Ukraine’s military said Russian forces were continuing their offensive in the east of the country to try to establish full control over Donetsk and Luhansk, with attacks on both military and civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine said its forces repulsed 12 attacks on Donetsk and Luhansk a day earlier.

British military intelligence said Ukrainian resistance had been strong, especially in Donbas, despite some Russian gains.

“Poor Russian morale and limited time to reconstitute, re-equip and reorganise forces from prior offensives are likely hindering Russian combat effectiveness,” it said. – Reuters