The US’ top diplomat and defense chief were yesterday set to make their first war-time visits to Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago, with fierce fighting casting a long shadow over Orthodox Easter.
The trip by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin comes as the war enters its third month, with thousands dead and millions displaced.
Several European leaders have already traveled to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and underscore their support, but the US — a leading donor of finance and weaponry — had not sent any top officials so far.
Photo: AP
Blinken and Lloyd’s arrival in Ukraine was set to coincide with Easter celebrations in the largely Orthodox country.
“Our souls are filled with fierce hatred for the invaders and all that they have done. Don’t let rage destroy us from within,” Zelenskiy said in a statement to mark the holiday.
The highly sensitive trip by two of US President Joe Biden’s top Cabinet members comes as Russian forces show no sign of easing their attacks after a missile strike on the southern city of Odesa that killed eight people, including an infant.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Among those killed was a three-month-old baby girl. How did she threaten Russia? It seems that killing children is just a new national idea of the Russian Federation,” Zelenskiy said.
He also accused Russia of being a terrorist state, likening its behavior to that of Nazis in the shattered port city of Mariupol, which has been devastated by weeks of intense bombardment.
UN Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine Amin Awad called for an “immediate stop” to fighting in Mariupol to allow the evacuation of trapped civilians in the battered city.
“The lives of tens of thousands, including women, children and older people, are at stake in Mariupol,” Awad said in a statement. “We need a pause in fighting right now to save lives.”
The call came a day after the latest of many attempts to evacuate civilians from Mariupol failed, while an embattled unit of Ukrainian fighters holed up in tunnels under the sprawling Azovstal steel mill appeared in increasingly desperate straits.
In a message on social media yesterday, Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, said: “The enemy continues air strikes, artillery from the sea ... enemy tanks continue to strike and infantry is trying to storm.”
Mariupol is pivotal to Russia’s war plans to forge a land bridge to Russian-occupied Crimea — and possibly beyond, as far as Moldova.
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