US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a surprise visit to Kiev today, will announce a billion dollars in aid to Ukraine, a State Department official said.
The new aid package, the State Department spokesman noted, will aim to improve air defense and strengthen the armed forces to break through the "really powerful defense lines" of the Russians, reports RBC-Ukraine. This is the first trip to the capital by a senior US official since the beginning of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Blinken first visited Kiev together with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin in April 2022 after the liberation of the Kiev region. The second visit to Kiev took place in September 2022, during the counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region.
The Reuters news agency reports on its website that Blinken is expected to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, as well as other senior officials and civil society figures. A U.S. State Department official told Reuters that Blinken would discuss the Ukrainian counteroffensive, as well as the need for the army and strengthening the energy sector before winter. "I think the most important thing is to get a real assessment from the Ukrainians themselves.
We want to see and hear how they move in the coming weeks," the official said.
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