Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is traveling to the US this Wednesday (21) to meet with US President Joe Biden, address Congress, and look for “guns, guns, and more guns.” It is his first trip abroad in 300 days since Russia invaded his country.
Zelensky said the visit was aimed at strengthening Ukraine’s “resilience and defense capabilities” amid Russia’s repeated attacks on energy and water supplies in the middle of winter.
Anti-aircraft sirens sounded across Ukraine today, but there was no immediate word of a new wave of attacks, officials said.
Ukrainian presidential political adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Zelensky’s visit to the US showed the high trust between the two countries and offered him the opportunity to explain what weapons Kiev needed.
“This finally put an end to the attempts of the Russian side to prove the growing coldness in our bilateral relations,” Podolyak told Reuters.
“The United States unequivocally supports Ukraine.”
A senior US official said Biden will announce about $2 billion more in military aid to Ukraine, including a battery of Patriot missiles to help it defend against Russian missiles.
“Weapons, guns and more guns. It’s important to personally explain why we need certain types of guns,” Podolyak said. “Especially armored vehicles, the latest anti-missile defense systems and long-range missiles.”
Zelensky’s visit is expected to last several hours.
He will meet Biden and senior national security advisers at the White House, attend a press conference with the US president, and then travel to Capitol Hill to speak at a joint session of the US Senate and House of Representatives.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 with the aim of capturing Kiev in a few days, and this goal soon proved unattainable. Russian President Vladimir Putin describes the operation, which Russia calls a “special military operation” to “seaize” Ukraine, as the moment when Moscow finally stood up against the West.
Since then, thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed, millions have been forced from their homes, and entire cities have been in ruins.
Biden will meet face-to-face with the man he has been seeing regularly for 10 months but has not met face-to-face since the war began. A US official said he would not use the speech to push Zelensky to the negotiating table with Putin.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it did not see a chance for peace talks with Kyiv. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a phone conversation with journalists that continued Western arms supplies to Ukraine would lead to a “deepening” of the conflict.
source: Noticias
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.