Unbending US support promised by Pelosi
Over 100 civilians leave besieged steel plant in Mariupol
WARSAW, Poland — A top-level U.S. congressional delegation led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the “ferocity” and resolve of Ukrainians in a faceto-face meeting with their leader in a weekend visit to Kyiv undertaken in extraordinary secrecy.
Pelosi, second in line to the presidency after the vice president, was the most senior American lawmaker to visit Ukraine since Russia’s war began more than two months ago. Only days earlier, Russia bombed the Ukrainian capital while the U.N. secretary-general was there.
Pelosi and the half-dozen U.S. lawmakers with her met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his top aides for three hours late Saturday to voice American solidarity with the besieged nation and get a first-hand assessment of the effort as she works to steer a massive new Ukraine aid package through Congress.
“Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done,” Pelosi is seen telling Zelenskyy in a video of the meeting released by his office. “We are on a frontier of freedom, and your fight is a fight for everyone. Thank you for your fight for freedom.”
“You all are welcome,” Zelenskyy told the delegation.
Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters in Poland the delegation was proud to convey to Zelenskyy “the message of unity from the Congress of the United States, a message of appreciation from the American people for his leadership and admiration for the people of Ukraine for their courage.”
She is set to meet Polish President Andrzej Duda, a NATO ally, on Monday in Warsaw.
Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., a U.S. Army veteran, said he came to Ukraine with
three areas of focus: “Weapons, weapons and weapons.”
Also joining Pelosi were Reps. Bill Keating, D-Mass, Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif.
“We have to make sure the Ukrainians have what they need to win. What we have seen in the last two months is their ferocity, their intense pride, their ability to fight and their ability to win if they have the support to do so,” Crow said.
The delegation’s trip to Kyiv was not disclosed until the party was safely out of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the long-awaited effort to evacuate civilians from a steel plant in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was underway Sunday.
U.N. humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu said the operation to bring civilians out of the sprawling Azovstal steel plant was being carried out with the International Committee of the Red Cross and in coordination with Ukrainian and Russian officials.
Video posted online by Ukrainian forces showed elderly women and mothers with children bundled in winter clothing being helped as they climbed up a pile of debris from the plant’s rubble, and then eventually boarding a bus.
The evacuation operation drew praise from Zelenskyy, who said more than 100 civilians — primarily women and children — were expected to arrive in the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhzhia on Monday.
“Today, for the first time in all the days of the war, this vitally needed (humanitarian) corridor has started working,” he said in a pre-recorded address published on his Telegram channel.
Later Sunday, one of the plant’s defenders said Russian forces resumed shelling the plant as soon as the evacuation of a group of civilians was completed.
Denys Shlega, commander of the 12th Operational Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard, said in a televised interview Sunday night that several hundred civilians remain trapped alongside nearly 500 wounded soldiers and “numerous” dead bodies.
“Several dozen small children are still in the bunkers underneath the plant,” Shlega
“We have to make sure the Ukrainians have what they need to win. What we have seen in the last two months is their ferocity, their intense pride, their ability to fight and their ability to win if they have the support to do so.”
said. “We need one or two more rounds of evacuation.”
As many as 100,000 people are believed to still be in blockaded Mariupol, including up to 1,000 civilians who were hunkered down with an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian fighters beneath the Soviet-era steel plant — the only part of the city not occupied by the Russians.
The fate of the Ukrainian fighters still hunkered down in the plant was not clear.
Russian forces have embarked on a major military operation to seize significant parts of southern and eastern Ukraine following their failure to capture the capital, Kyiv.
Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov, is a target because of its strategic location near the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014.
Meanwhile, Germany said it’s making progress on weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels and expects to be fully independent of Russian crude oil imports by late summer. Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck said Europe’s largest economy has reduced the share of Russian energy imports to 12% for oil, 8% for coal and 35% for natural gas.
— Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo.