US secretaries of state, defense head to Ukraine for Sunday talks, Zelensky says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin are going to satisfy with him in Kyiv on Sunday.
Photograph by -/UKRAINE PRESIDENCY/AFP through Getty Pictures

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Protection Lloyd Austin will journey to Kyiv Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned, for his first face-to-face assembly with members of President Biden’s cupboard for the reason that Russian invasion started.

“Tomorrow, the American officers are coming to go to us,” Zelensky mentioned in a Saturday press convention.

“We will likely be anticipating, when the safety will permit, the President of the US to return and to speak to us,” Zelensky added.

“We are going to discuss concerning the checklist of weapons that we want and the tempo of its provide,” he informed reporters gathered in a Kyiv subway station. “In current weeks, the tempo, the quantity has all improved. I’m grateful for that.”

The White Home declined to touch upon Zelensky’s shock revelation, which got here sooner or later after Blinken met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington, DC on Friday.

Austin and Blinken would be the first cupboard members to go to Ukraine since Russia launched the invasion.

AP Photograph/Alex Brandon

That assembly was “additional proof that an unbiased, sovereign Ukraine goes to be round so much longer than Vladimir Putin,” Blinken mentioned on the time.

Zelensky additionally known as on the Russian president to satisfy with him in particular person to barter an finish to his bloody invasion, on the verge of getting into its second month.

“I believe that whoever began this struggle will be capable to finish it,” he mentioned — including, “I don’t have a proper to be afraid” after seeing his individuals’s braveness within the face of the Russian assault.

The journey comes after Blinken met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Washington, DC earlier this week.

Photograph by SUSAN WALSH/POOL/AFP through Getty Pictures

However he mentioned that Ukrainian negotiators will pull the plug on peace talks if Putin’s forces slaughter the final Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol, who're holed up within the huge Azovstal steelworks.

“If our males are killed in Mariupol,” Zelensky promised, “Ukraine will withdraw from any negotiation course of.”