Blinken says US aid arriving at ‘challenging’ time for Ukraine

KYIV – United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 14 that part of a major American aid package has arrived in Ukraine and that more is on its way that is going to “make a real difference”.

Mr Blinken arrived in Kyiv in the first visit to Ukraine by a senior US official since Congress passed a long-delayed US$61 billion (S$82.6 billion) military aid package for the country in April.

The previously undisclosed trip aims to show US solidarity with Ukraine

as it struggles to fend off heavy Russian bombardment on its north-eastern border.

“We know this is a challenging time. But we also know that, in the near term, the assistance is now on the way. Some of it has already arrived, and more of it will be arriving,” Mr Blinken said.

“And that’s going to make a real difference against the ongoing Russian aggression on the battlefield.”

Ukraine recaptured swathes of territory during the first year after Russia’s invasion in 2022, but a Ukrainian counter-offensive faltered in 2023 and, in recent months, Russia has retaken the initiative at the frontline.

Military aid from Washington, Kyiv’s main backer, was held up for months, blocked by Republicans in the US Congress until they finally allowed a vote in April, when it passed with support from both parties.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, addressing Mr Blinken in English, said air defence supplies were “the biggest deficit for us”, with Russia conducting long-range aerial attacks since March that have pounded electricity facilities and caused blackouts.

“Really, we need today two Patriots for Kharkiv, for Kharkiv region, because there the people are under attack.

“Civilians, warriors, everybody, they are under Russian missiles.”

Mr Blinken arrived in Kyiv by train early on the morning of May 14, days after Russia launched a ground incursion into the north of the region of Kharkiv, opening a new front and stretching Ukraine’s soldiers.

Kyiv has been on the back foot on the battlefield for months as Russian troops have slowly advanced, mainly in the Donetsk region to the south, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortages of troop manpower and artillery shells. Russia’s forces hold a significant advantage in manpower and munitions.

The trip aimed to “send a strong signal of reassurance to the Ukrainians who are obviously in a very difficult moment”, said a US official who briefed reporters travelling with Mr Blinken, on condition of anonymity.

“The Secretary’s mission here is really to talk about how our supplemental assistance is going to be executed in a fashion to help shore up their defences (and) enable them to increasingly take back the initiative on the battlefield,” the official said.

Artillery, long-range missiles known as ATACMS and air defence interceptors approved by President Joe Biden on April 24 were already reaching the Ukrainian forces, the official said.

Mr Blinken will reassure Ukrainian officials, including President Zelensky, of enduring US support and deliver a speech focused on Ukraine's future, the official said.

On May 13, US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington was trying to accelerate “the tempo of the deliveries” of weapons to Ukraine to help it reverse its disadvantage.

“The delay put Ukraine in a hole and we’re trying to help them dig out of that hole as rapidly as possible,” Mr Sullivan said, adding that a fresh package of weapons was going to be announced this week.

Expanding the fighting

Russia now controls about 18 per cent of Ukraine and has been gaining ground since the failure of Kyiv’s 2023 counter-offensive to make serious inroads against Russian troops dug in behind deep minefields.

Moscow's troops entered Ukraine near its second largest city of Kharkiv on May 10, opening a new, north-eastern front in a war that has for almost two years been largely fought in the east and south. The advance could draw some of Kyiv's depleted forces away from the east, where Russia has been advancing.

“They (the Russians) are clearly throwing everything they have in the east,” said the US official.

Economic and political reforms being undertaken by Kyiv will pave the way for Ukraine to join the European Union and eventually Nato, the official said.

While the US-led defence alliance is not likely to admit Ukraine any time soon, individual members are reaching bilateral security agreements with Kyiv. Talks on a US-Ukraine agreement are “in the final stages” and will conclude ahead of the July Nato summit in Washington, the US official said.

The Group of Seven wealthy nations signed a joint declaration at the Nato summit in Vilnius in July 2023 committing to establish “long-term security commitments and arrangements” with Ukraine that would be negotiated bilaterally.

Kyiv says the arrangements should contain important and concrete security commitments, but that the agreements would in no way replace its strategic goal of joining Nato. The Western alliance regards any attack launched on one of its 32 members as an attack on all under its Article Five clause. REUTERS