US pledges more help for Ukraine

RUSSIA has unleashed a string of attacks against Ukrainian rail and fuel facilities, striking crucial infrastructure far from the front line of its eastern offensive.

Meanwhile, two fires were reported at oil facilities in western Russia, not far from the Ukrainian border. It was not clear what caused the blazes.

As both sides in the war brace for what could be a grinding battle of attrition in the country’s eastern industrial heartland, top US officials pledged more help to ensure Ukraine prevails.

In a bold visit to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, the American secretaries of state and defence said Washington had approved a $165 million (£129 million) sale of ammunition – non-US ammo, mainly if not entirely to fit Ukraine’s Soviet-era weapons – along with more than $300 million (£235 million) in financing to buy more supplies.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said after the meeting that the West’s united support for Ukraine and pressure on Moscow are having “real results”.

“When it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding,” he added.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the American support but said that “as long as Russian soldiers put a foot on Ukrainian soil, nothing is enough”.

Mr Kuleba warned that if western powers want Ukraine to win the war and “stop Putin in Ukraine and not to allow him to go further, deeper into Europe”, then countries need to speed up the delivery of the weapons requested by Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the US and its allies of trying to “split Russian society and to destroy Russia from within”.

Moscow now says its goal is capturing Donbas region in the east.

Smoke and flames from oil storage facilities hit by fire in Bryansk, Russia, yesterday.