Ukraine leader seeks Biden support

Ukraine’s leader will ask President Joe Biden on Wednesday for firm US support on military modernization, worried about rising Russian pressure days after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

President Volodymyr Zelensky was invited to Washington after Biden disappointed Ukraine by waiving most sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being built from Russia to Germany, saying it was too late to stop the project that Eastern European nations fear will erode their leverage against Moscow.

Zelensky visited the Pentagon on Tuesday hours after the last US troops left Afghanistan as America’s longest-ever war ended with the nearly 20-year-old US-backed government crumbling to the Taliban. Russian officials have pointed to Afghanistan as a lesson.