Making a previously unannounced stop in Kyiv as new Russian attacks mount, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday warned of a difficult few weeks ahead for Ukraine as he pledged that the U.S. will stay by its side for the long haul.
“Putin is ramping up yet another offensive against Ukraine in Kharkiv and across the east, sending wave after wave of Russian soldiers, Iranian drones, North Korean artillery and tanks, missiles and fighter jets built with machines and parts supplied by China,” Blinken said in Kyiv on Tuesday. “The coming weeks and months will demand a great deal of Ukrainians, who have already sacrificed so much.”
“But I have come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone,” the secretary continued. “The United States has been by your side from day one. We are with you today.”
Blinken’s trip comes three weeks after Congress passed a $95 billion foreign aid package that included $61 billion for Ukraine. Earlier on Tuesday, Blinken told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the fresh assistance from the U.S. was going to make a “real difference” against Russia on the ground.
Almost immediately after the foreign aid bill’s passage, the Department of Defense announced a $1 billion package for Kyiv containing air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, and anti-tank weapons. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Monday told reporters that some of the equipment from that package is already on the battlefield.
The White House, he said, expects some of the equipment provided in the $400 million package the president approved on Friday to make it on the ground this week. Sullivan said the administration will announce another package for Ukraine “in the coming days.”
But Blinken’s assurances, made during a speech at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute on Tuesday, comes after a months-long display of just how thorny the issue of U.S. aid to Ukraine has become in Washington, particularly on the right. The package was stalled in Congress for months amid opposition from some in the GOP, despite urgent pleas from President Joe Biden to pass the additional aid.
“Some Ukrainians may be wondering whether you can count on America to sustain its commitment,” Blinken said. “The $60 billion aid package that was approved by our Congress with overwhelming support across both political parties in both houses of Congress, I think demonstrates that you can.”
Appearing to address criticism frequently heard from some on the right who are apprehensive about or against additional U.S. aid to Ukraine, Blinken emphasized the Biden administration had a plan for “getting to the day when Ukraine can stand strongly on its own feet” and American support can move to more “sustainable levels.”
“As President Zelenskyy recently said, we're creating a security architecture that Ukraine has never had, but has always needed,” Blinken said. “We’re bringing Ukraine closer to and then into NATO.”
Sullivan on Monday said the U.S. is trying to “accelerate the tempo” of military assistance to Ukraine after the delay in Congress’ passage of the aid package “put Ukraine in a hole.”
“We’re trying to help them dig out of that hole as rapidly as possible,” he said.
In increasingly intense attacks along the northeastern border in recent days, Russian troops have captured around 40 to 50 square miles in the northeast Kharkiv region that includes at least seven villages, according to open-source monitoring analysts. Though most of those villages were already depopulated, thousands of civilians in the area have fled the fighting.
The Kremlin’s forces have also been making a concerted push in the east, seeking to drive deeper into the partly occupied Donetsk region. The main focus of Russian attacks Tuesday was Pokrovsk, just inside the Ukrainian border in Donetsk, where the Kremlin’s forces launched 24 assaults, the Ukrainian general staff said in a report.
Speaking to Blinken on Tuesday at their meeting, Zelenskyy stressed the need for more air defense systems to protect civilians under intense Russian fire in the northeast, calling it “the biggest deficit for us.”
Sullivan on Monday called it “a matter of utmost priority,” adding he speaks daily with allies about getting more Patriot batteries into Ukraine.
“And beyond Patriots, we’re looking for other systems, as well, because we believe that there are a number of allies who have capabilities they could share and ways in which the United States could help them with their -- their air defense needs as a backfill,” he said. “That is an ongoing conversation.”
In a lighter moment, Blinken joined a rock band at a bar in Kyiv for a rendition of Neil Young's 1989 hit "Rockin' in the Free World."
"Your soldiers, your citizens, particularly in the northeast, in Kharkiv, are suffering tremendously," Blinken said, red guitar in hand. "But they need to know, you need to know, the United States is with you, so much of the world is with you, and they're fighting not just for a free Ukraine, but for the free world."
"And the free world is with you too," he added, before launching into the song.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.