U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy meet with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday.
Mark Schiefelbein/AP
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Mark Schiefelbein/AP
KYIV – Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv Wednesday on a joint visit with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy. It’s a show of support for Ukraine at a critical time in the 30-month war.
“We are here as partners to listen and share ideas,” Blinken said.
Blinken and Lammy are meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has been pressing the White House to lift its restrictions on long-range missiles like ATACMs, which the U.S. sent to Ukraine last year. Ukraine wants to use them to hit weapons stockpiles, logistical centers, airfields and other military targets deep in Russia.
Zelenskyy says it’s the best way to protect Ukraine from continued Russian attacks. One strike last week on a military academy in central Ukraine killed at least 58 and injured nearly 300.
“The determination of Ukrainians is more than sufficient,” Zelenskyy said in his evening video address on Tuesday night. “The determination of our partners should become much more far-reaching.”
The White House has repeatedly refused to change its policy, citing concerns that such strikes could aggravate Russia, with its vast arsenal and nuclear weapons. There seemed to be a shift in tone on Tuesday, when Blinken announced that Iran is supplying Russia with ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine. Lammy called it a “significant escalation.” The U.S., UK, France and Germany have imposed fresh sanctions on Iran.
Blinken says he will report back to President Biden, who meets with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday. Zelenskyy and his team have managed to successfully lobby the White House for more and better weapons in the past after initial resistance by Washington.
Ukraine continues to lose territory to Russia in the east even after Ukraine’s surprise invasion of the Russian region of Kursk last month. Zelenskyy wants to reclaim all Ukrainian land, including the peninsula of Crimea, which Russia occupied and illegally annexed in 2014. “Crimea is not just a territory, it is part of our soul,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday at the unveiling of a monument to the nearly 200,000 Crimean Tatars who died after the Soviets forced them out of their homes in 1944.
At Kyiv’s Institute for International Relations, students aiming to become Ukraine’s future diplomats debate how their country can manage in the shifting sands of modern geopolitics. Some worry about pro-Russian countries banding together, others about the outcome of the U.S. election. Vladyslav Payuk, 19, says he wants Ukraine’s allies to understand how Ukrainians feel when Russia bombs their cities.
“Why can’t we bomb (Russian) strategic facilities,” he says, speaking about the restriction on long-range weapons. “Why can’t we shoot them back? Every day in every city of Ukraine, families are killed.”
Volodymyr Ohryzko, a geopolitical analyst and former Ukrainian foreign minister, says Ukraine’s western allies believe Russia can be reasoned with.
“This is a mistake,” he told NPR. “They believe in fairy tales they invented themselves.”
He also cast doubt that Russia would participate in a Ukraine-initiated peace summit because he says the Kremlin’s goals for this war are clear: “Russia insists that we capitulate, and Ukraine does not accept capitulation.”
And he added that the U.S. has not yet resolved how to manage Russia in the long-term, and that this won’t happen until after the November presidential election.
