U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made his first public appearance Tuesday since being hospitalized in early January without notifying top authorities, speaking via video conference during a Ukraine Contact Group meeting.
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Lloyd Austin, 70, was hospitalized for two weeks on Jan. 1 due to complications following surgery related to prostate cancer, which he was diagnosed with in early December.
That diagnosis and the two subsequent hospitalizations were not reported to the country's top authorities, starting with Joe Biden, until several days later, prompting an outcry in the press and from his Republican opponents in the middle of an election year.
“The security of the entire international community is at stake in Ukraine’s struggle. “I am more committed than ever to working with our allies and partners to support Ukraine and get the job done,” Austin said in front of a Defense Department seal and small American and Ukrainian flags.
He pointed to $250 million in military aid to Ukraine announced by Washington last month, but did not elaborate on new U.S. aid because the funds had dried up.
Republican opposition in Congress is refusing to approve a new budget package until President Joe Biden responds to their calls to reduce immigration at the border with Mexico.
The meeting of the contact group, which coordinates the coalition's military assistance to Ukraine in the war against Russia, comes against the backdrop of at least seven civilians being killed and killed in nightly Russian airstrikes, particularly targeting the Ukrainian capital Kiev and Kharkiv (east). almost 80 were injured. , local authorities said on Tuesday.
The Pentagon chief's hospitalization without informing the White House left a key U.S. national security official without news at a time when American forces in Iraq and Syria are being targeted by fire The Houthi rebels are active in Yemen and are attacking international shipping in the Red Sea.
However, the White House assured that the Pentagon chief monitored the US-British attacks on the Houthi rebels in Yemen on January 12 “from his hospital bed.”