DM Monitoring
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy headed to Washington on Wednesday to meet President Joe Biden, address Congress and seek “weapons, weapons and more weapons” in his first overseas trip since Russia invaded Ukraine 300 days ago.
Zelenskiy said the visit was meant to strengthen Ukraine’s “resilience and defence capabilities” amid repeated Russian missile and drone attacks on the country’s energy and water supplies in the dead of winter.
His political adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the visit showed the high degree of trust between the two countries and offered him the opportunity to explain what weapons Kyiv needed.
“This finally puts an end to the attempts by the Russian side … to prove an allegedly growing cooling in our bilateral relations,” Podolyak told media.
“This, of course, is not even close. The United States unequivocally supports Ukraine.”
Biden will announce nearly $2 billion in further military assistance for Ukraine that will include a Patriot missile battery to help it defend itself against barrages of Russian missiles, a senior U.S. official said.
“Weapons, weapons and more weapons. It is important to personally explain why we need certain types of weapons,” Podolyak said. “In particular, armoured vehicles, the latest missile defence systems and long-range missiles.”
The visit to Washington comes a day after President Zelensky, dressed in combat khaki, was in Bakhmut, a front-line city in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the fiercest battles in this war.
He met trwoops and handed out awards to soldiers, the presidency said.
The visit was a significant show of defiance – and a demonstration of support for Ukrainian forces on the front line.
Soldiers gave Mr Zelensky a Ukrainian flag with their names signed on it and asked him to give it to President Biden and the US Congress, in a moment that was captured on camera.
President Zelensky has vowed to take back all territory that’s under occupation, including areas invaded before February. Before the visit, in his traditional evening address, he said Ukraine would do “everything possible and impossible, expected and unexpected” to get “the results that all Ukrainians expect”.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the US military estimates that at least 100,000 Russian and 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured, along with some 40,000 civilian deaths.
The UN has recorded 7.8 million people as refugees from Ukraine across Europe, including Russia. However, the figure does not include those who have been forced to flee their homes but remain in Ukraine.
