This is the first time senior U.S. officials have arrived in Ukraine since the entire Russian invasion began, and a new ambassador is expected to be appointed soon.
High visitors continue to come to Ukraine. This time, an American delegation visited Kyiv, and they did so as secretly as possible. On Saturday, April 23, at a press conference, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was waiting in Kyiv for U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. In the United States, this information has not been officially confirmed; the visit is specifically classified. The American side did not announce the visit in advance and did not name its participants. The White House has only warned that a high -ranking US delegation will visit Ukraine without such an announcement. The fact that guests from the United States have already arrived in Kyiv and are meeting with Zelensky was announced only on the evening of April 24 by Aleksey Arestovich, adviser to the head of the Office of the President.
Correspondent.net summarizes the secret visit.
Glad the APU
On the Ukrainian side, in addition to Zelensky, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny, Head of the Office of President Andriy Yermak and Ukrainian Ambassador to The United States Oksana Markarova took part in the talks.
The conversations are long, lasting about three hours in general, Blinken said. He also clarified that US representatives traveled to Kyiv by train from Poland. Austin called the meeting “very productive” and mentioned the involvement of all parties in it.
Blinken and Austin in Kyiv confirmed the Joe Biden administration’s intention to allocate an additional $ 713 million in foreign military financing (FMF) to Ukraine and 15 other U.S. partners in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Of these, 322 million dollars will be allocated to Ukraine, including for the supply of weapons and training of the Ukrainian military. Ukraine provided the United States with a plan to strengthen sanctions against the Russian Federation.
Austin stressed that the United States will try to speed up the supply of weapons to Ukraine, although now they have arrived within a few days after the announcement of such deliveries. In the coming days, on the initiative of the United States, international consultations on defense issues will be held in Germany, where they will discuss this and other issues of assistance to Ukraine.
Separately, the US Secretary of Defense mentioned that the Ukrainian military has done a good job of pushing Russian troops. “We express our admiration for their professionalism and commitment to defending Ukrainian democracy,” Austin said.
“We know that a sovereign independent Ukraine will last longer than Vladimir Putin on the stage,” Blinken added.
Press Service of the President of Ukraine
Return of the Embassy
The United States resumed its diplomatic presence in Ukraine this week. According to CNN, Blinken personally assured Zelensky of this at the meeting, and the return of the diplomatic mission to Ukraine was gradual. U.S. diplomats are expected to begin day trips to Lvov, then spread to other parts of the country, eventually opening a U.S. diplomatic mission in Kyiv. Blinken expressed the hope that this would be possible “in a few weeks.” “We will proceed with caution, taking into account first of all the safety of our personnel,” the head of the U.S. State Department assured.
New Ambassador
Biden will appoint Bridget Brink as US Ambassador to Ukraine. This position has been vacant for nearly three years (since May 2019) since Trump recalled Marie Yovanovitch from the embassy in Kyiv. Brink is now the U.S. Ambassador to Slovakia, beginning his diplomatic career at the State Department working in the former Yugoslavia during the war years of the early 90s. Commenting on Brinken’s appointment, Blinken recalled that he had “excellent experience in this region,” and the U.S. State Department added that he was “uniquely suited for this moment in Ukraine’s history.”
Over the past 25 years, Brink has built a career as a professional diplomat. In 2005-2008, the diplomat headed the political and economic department of the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi (Georgia), where Russia declared war in 2008.
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After that, Bridget Brink returned to Washington for a few years, where she was appointed deputy director of the Department of Southern European Affairs at the U.S. State Department. At the same time, when Barack Obama was President of the United States, he joined the National Security Council as coordinator of the development of Washington’s relations with the countries of the Aegean Sea and South Caucasus (Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia).
In 2011, Brink returned to Georgia – now as Deputy Head of the US Embassy in Tbilisi. He was then transferred to a similar position at the American Embassy in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), where Brink worked in 2014-2015. The diplomat left Uzbekistan in 2015 when he was appointed deputy assistant to the U.S. secretary of state at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. In this role, he is responsible for protracted conflicts in Europe, as well as US relations with Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
Finally, in May 2019, Bridget Brink was appointed US Ambassador for the first time – Donald Trump sent her to represent America in Slovakia. By the end of 2021, Brink will be based in Bratislava.
Long before his appointment as U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, he actively supported the country’s accession to NATO in 2002-2004 (Slovakia became a member of the Alliance on March 29, 2004). Brink also noted that strengthening transatlantic relations has been one of the focuses of his entire career.
Source: korrespondent
