WASHINGTON DC: Jake Sullivan, White House national security adviser, made an unannounced visit to Kyiv to reassure Ukrainians that the United States continued to support Ukraine and that despite a delay in Congress, billions in aid would get to the country.
“We will get a strong bipartisan vote in Congress,” Sullivan said during a press conference, calling it Plan A.
“We will get that money to you as we should, so I don’t think we need to speak about Plan B today.” He also acknowledged that the process had “taken too long.”
Sullivan met with Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff. They talked about what Ukraine needs on the battlefield and two upcoming summits: the NATO summit in July in Washington and a peace summit in Switzerland that is not yet scheduled but may happen this spring. Yermak said that China, an ally of Russia, could attend, but Ukraine will not invite Russia.
Missile strike
Meanwhile, a Russian missile attack Wednesday killed at least five people and wounded eight more in an industrial area in Ukraine’s northern city of Kharkiv, local authorities reported. Five others were missing, the city’s mayor said.
The blast also set off a major fire at a printing facility in Ukraine’s second-largest city.
The Kharkiv region, which borders Russia to the north and lies close to the front line, has sustained numerous attacks during Russia’s two-year invasion.
“According to preliminary data, it was a cruise missile. A serious fire continues at the site,” regional governor Oleh Synehubov said on national TV.
A furniture and paint products factory also was hit in the attack, said Serhiy Bolvinov, head of the investigative department of the regional police.
Rescuers rushed to the site to fight flames covering an area of more than 2,000 square meters (21,500 square feet) and worked through the rubble in a search for survivors, the emergency service said. As many as 10 people possibly were trapped.
In a later post on the messaging app Telegram, Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported new shelling in the city.
Russia’s defense ministry reported that overnight its air defenses destroyed 13 Ukrainian missiles and one drone targeting the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
(VOA)
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