By Deutsche Welle
Sep 15, 2024, 7:12 PM EDT
The United States is determined to strengthen Ukraine so that it can stand up to Russia, a senior US official said, adding that delays in delivering military aid to kyiv were due only to “difficult logistics”.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden is “determined to use the last four months [de su mandato] to put Ukraine in the best possible position to impose itself” on Moscow.
Meeting between Biden and Zelensky
The US president will meet his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of the month during the UN General Assembly in New York, Sullivan said in a video address at a conference organised in kyiv by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
Zelensky and other Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly criticised delays in military aid from Western powers, especially the United States, Ukraine’s main ally in the two-and-a-half-year war with Russia.
The delay: “difficult logistics”
Sullivan said the problem was due to difficult logistics and not a lack of political will to support kyiv.
“It is not a question of political will. It is a question of difficult and complicated logistics. […] to deliver this material to the front,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday announced $717 million in new economic and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, including assistance to enable kyiv to restore its energy infrastructure in the face of Russian attacks.
“As we meet here today, we see Putin again dusting off his winter playbook, targeting Ukraine’s power and electricity systems to weaponize the cold against the Ukrainian people,” Blinken said at a press conference alongside his British counterparts, David Lammy, and Andri Sibiga, of Ukraine.
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