US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Russia’s military capabilities should be dismantled after he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and announced more US military aid to the country.
“We want Russia to be weakened to the point where it can no longer do the things it did when it invaded Ukraine,” Mr Austin said Monday following the high-level visit of U.S. officials to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine is February 24. Mr Blinken said: “Russia fails, Ukraine succeeds.”
In an attempt to stem the flow of heavy weapons from the US and other allies to the front lines in Ukraine, Russia on Monday hit several Ukrainian rail hubs with rocket attacks, severely disrupting rail services. Meanwhile, large fires broke out at fuel storage facilities in Russia’s Bryansk region, about 60 miles from the border with Ukraine, and at a nearby military fuel depot, Russian state media said.
Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin, after meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, said the US wants to weaken Russia; a Russian oil depot caught fire; Ukrainian Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter as fighting continued. Photo: Associated Press
Russian authorities said they were investigating the fires at the facilities, which Russian state media said combined contained around 15,000 tons of fuel. The blazes erupted less than a month after Russia said Ukrainian helicopters had launched strikes that caused a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s Belgorod region, which also borders Ukraine. Russian state media on Monday broadcast surveillance camera footage that appeared to show a large explosion followed by a fire.
The Russian missile strikes hit railway infrastructure in central Ukraine’s Rivne region, local officials said. They followed other rocket attacks late Sunday in Poltava, hitting an electric power station and a fuel refinery. The governor of central Ukraine’s Vinnytsia province said early Monday that Russian missile attacks had hit critical infrastructure in the region and there were deaths and injuries, but did not give details.
The strikes came hours after Mr. Blinken and Mr. Austin told Mr. Zelensky that Washington would reopen its embassy in Kyiv and provide Ukraine with $322 million in foreign military aid so Kyiv could buy the weapons it needs. Russia’s Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, issued a diplomatic note urging Washington to halt arms sales to Ukraine, Russia’s RIA news agency reported on Monday.
Artificial flowers decorate a memorial wall for those killed during the war in Lviv, western Ukraine.
Photo: Yuriy Dyachyshyn/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
An underground car park in Kharkiv provides makeshift shelters for Ukrainians sheltering from the bombing of the northeastern city.
Photo: Sergey Bobok/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
“We believe that if they have the right equipment and the right support, they can win,” Mr. Austin said, adding of Mr. Zelensky, “While he’s grateful for all that we’re doing, he’s also focused on that , which he thinks he’ll need in the next few to be successful.” Besides artillery, Ukraine has expressed an interest in more tanks, he said.
Mr Zelensky said the $3.4 billion in defense assistance provided by the US so far has been the largest contributor to Ukraine’s defense efforts, adding that he also spoke about sanctions against Russia, financial support for Ukraine and I have spoken to the ministers about security guarantees.
“I would like to thank President Biden personally and on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for his leadership in supporting Ukraine, for his personal clear position,” he said in a statement on his website.
The White House said Monday that Mr. Biden plans to appoint Bridget Brink, the current US ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine. The position has been vacant since the country’s last Senate-confirmed ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, was removed by President Donald Trump in 2019.
Messrs Austin and Blinken hailed Ukraine’s success in repelling Russia’s initial attack on Kyiv and maintaining its sovereignty. A senior State Department official briefed reporters fleeing Poland on many aspects of Ukraine’s military campaign that were discussed with Mr. Zelensky, including Russia’s exhausted military forces and inability to allocate many more resources to the war without compromising his stance on NATO and even endangering Finland. who could join the alliance.
Still, US officials said they recognized that Russian President Vladimir Putin could escalate the war, possibly involving weapons of mass destruction.
“I suspect May will be keen to show something so we fully expect he will push the accelerator as best he can,” said the senior official. “We try to be prepared for anything.”
After meeting Odessa in recent days, the senior official said Mr Putin was looking at “the entire expanse of the Black Sea coast”.
The official declined to comment on the Bryansk blasts due to insufficient information or analysis.
Speaking at a briefing in Poland after returning from Kyiv, Mr Blinken said he spoke to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Friday and that the UN chief, who will visit Moscow and Kyiv this week, had a “clear, direct Message” will be sent “on behalf of most of the world that Russia should agree to a ceasefire, provide the necessary assistance to the civilian population and end the war.
Rescuers cleared debris from a damaged building in Odessa, southern Ukraine, on Sunday.
Photo: Oleksandr Gimanov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A child stands next to a wrecked car in the southern port city of Mariupol.
Photo: ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO/REUTERS
Mr Guterres had asked for a four-day ceasefire during Orthodox Holy Week to allow for the evacuation of civilians from frontline towns and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The ceasefire proposal was rejected by Moscow, which said it was a ploy to allow Ukraine’s military to rest and regroup.
Senior US military officers at a facility in Poland described an accelerating logistical network for the delivery of arms and materiel to Ukraine, as well as regional troop-up efforts and drills with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization along the alliance’s eastern flank.
Seven 155mm artillery pieces will be processed through the facility along with their tow vehicles, adding to the 18 howitzers the US has already delivered to Ukraine, a senior defense official said. Six dozen US howitzers that came to Ukraine as part of a new aid package and 155mm artillery shells were on display on pallets at the Polish facility.
The focus on heavy artillery and armored vehicles comes as Russia is withdrawing some of its forces from near towns in northern Ukraine and instead focusing on the eastern Donbass region in a high-stakes, open-air conflict.
Mr Austin is due to join other defense ministers, including Ukraine’s Oleksii Reznikov and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, for a gathering at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany on Tuesday. Topics under discussion include updating the representatives of more than 20 countries on the latest information from the battlefield in Ukraine, security assistance to Kyiv and long-term strengthening of NATO’s defense industrial base in support of Ukraine’s defense, the defense official said.
One issue to be addressed at the meeting is Ukraine’s need for ammunition and weapon systems that NATO sees as non-standard, as well as discussions about whether the former Soviet country could switch to standard NATO equipment, the official said. For example, howitzers designed to fire 152mm rounds cannot accept the 155mm caliber.
The return of a US diplomatic presence to Ukraine, following steps by the UK, Italy, France and other countries, will help US and Ukrainian officials personally coordinate aid and other efforts and prepare for a future consular operation to To meet needs of citizens of both countries, the official said. The defense official declined to say whether US Marines would help guard the embassy in Kyiv, saying the military would respond to the State Department’s needs.
Asked whether the increased US focus on Ukraine could increase tensions with Russia, the US official said Washington has no plans to involve its troops in the conflict.
write to William Mauldin at [email protected] and Thomas Grove at [email protected]
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