KYVIV – Ukraine received substantial US military aid, and lawmakers approved another $40 billion aid package in May.
US President Joe Biden also said he will not send missile systems to Ukraine that could strike Russian territory, despite Kyiv’s urgent demands for such weapons and significant US military aid since the start of the war.
In Washington, Biden told reporters, “We will not send missile systems to Ukraine capable of attacking Russia.”
President Biden’s comments came as Washington’s new ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, arrived in Kyiv to fill a post that had been vacant since 2019, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter on Monday.
France’s new foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said during a visit to Kyiv that Paris was ready to increase military aid to Ukraine to counter the Russian invasion.
France “will continue to step up its arms deliveries”, Colonna said during a press conference with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.
As the highest-ranking French official to visit the capital since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, Colonna also visited Bucha, near Kyiv, where Russian troops have been accused of committing crimes of war against civilians.
“It should never have happened,” Colonna told reporters after visiting an Orthodox church in the city. This must never happen again.”
His visit came after a French journalist was killed while working in Ukraine.
Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff was “on board a humanitarian bus” when “he was fatally injured”, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his “sincere condolences” to Leclerc-Imhoff’s colleagues and family during his Monday night speech.
Civilian evacuations from the area were halted after the killing, Zelensky said.
- Editor/ additional report by AFP