Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy According to Saturday, the United States has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after newly sworn-in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he was halting foreign aid grants for 90 days.
Zelenskyy did not say whether humanitarian aid had been cut off. Ukraine relies on the United States for 40% of its military needs.
“I focus on military aid; He was not arrested, thank God,” he said during a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
AP
The two leaders met in kyiv on Saturday to discuss the energy needs of the Moldovan-occupied Transnistria region, which saw its natural gas supplies cut on Jan. 1 due to Ukraine’s decision to halt gas transit Russian. Ukraine said it could offer coal to the Transnistani authorities to compensate for the deficit.
The future of U.S. aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Trump begins his second term. The US leader has repeatedly said he would not have allowed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to begin if he had been in office, despite being president as fighting grew in the is the country between the forces of kyiv and the separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin, Putin Sending in tens of thousands of soldiers in 2022.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump told Fox News that Zelenskyy should have made a deal with Putin to avoid conflict. A day earlier, Trump also threatened to impose harsh tariffs and sanctions on Russia if a deal is not reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Rubio sent an order to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts requesting a pause on “all new funding obligations, pending review, for foreign assistance programs funded by or through the Department and USAID “. THE message was in line with the executive order Mr. Trump signed on Monday to reassess U.S. foreign aid. It was not immediately clear how the order will impact U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine and other countries.
The order, which was obtained by CBS News, said that in the U.S. government, “it is currently impossible to access sufficient information in one place to determine whether foreign assistance policies and interests supported by the appropriations are not duplicated, are effective, and are consistent with President Trump’s foreign policy. »
Speaking in kyiv on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he enjoyed “good meetings and conversations with President Trump” and believed the U.S. leader would succeed in his desire to end the war.
“This can only be done with Ukraine, and otherwise it simply will not work because Russia does not want to end the war, and Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.
Grind the eastern offensive
With Trump emphasizing the need to quickly negotiate a peace deal, Moscow and kyiv are seeking battlefield successes to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any potential talks.
Over the past year, Russian forces are mounting an intense campaign to punch holes in Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk region and weaken kyiv’s grip on eastern parts of the country. The sustained and costly offensive forced kyiv to abandon a series of towns, villages and hamlets.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Friday that Russian troops fought in the strategically important eastern center of Velyka Novosilka, although it was not possible to independently confirm the claim.
Elsewhere, three civilians were killed in shelling in Russia’s occupying neighborhood of Ukraine’s Kherson region on Saturday, Moscow Governor Vladimir Saldo said.
He urged residents of Oshky, which is near the front line in southern Ukraine, to stay at home or in bomb shelters.
Russia also attacked Ukraine with two missiles and 61 Shahed drones overnight on Saturday. Ukrainian air defenses shot down the missiles and 46 drones, an Air Force statement said. Another 15 drones failed to reach targets due to Ukrainian countermeasures.
The downed drones caused damage in the kyiv, Cherkasy and Khmelnytskyi regions, with Ukrainian emergency services saying five people were believed to be in a 9-story building in the Ukrainian capital.
Russia also struck Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region with drones causing casualties and damage, local authorities said Saturday.
The drones targeted the city’s Shevchenkivskyi, Kievskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
Russia used a Molniya drone – a cheap weapon that was developed and recently deployed by Russia – in the Shevchenkivskyi district, causing a fire. The attacks disrupted the city’s water and electricity supplies, the mayor said.
Terekhov said the number of victims was still being determined, while Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said three people, two women and one man, were injured during the strikes.