Blinken takes unannounced trip to Kyiv, indicates new security assistance for Ukraine

On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Ukraine on an unannounced trip. This is Blinken’s third visit to Ukraine since their war with Russia started in late February.

Blinken took a red-eye flight to Ukraine and on his arrival, met with his counterpart, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, not long after Ukraine’s military chief publicly raised a threat of Russia using nuclear weapons in the conflict.

“Another factor is the direct threat of the use by Russia, under certain circumstances, of tactical nuclear weapons,” Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said in an article co-authored by lawmaker Mykhailo Zabrodskyi and published by the state news agency Ukrinform.

Blinken said that the Biden administration will ringfence $2.2 billion for long-term investments “to bolster the security of Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors,” many of which are allies of NATO and Blinken feels could be at risk of Russian aggression.

That amount tops $675 million in military aid to include more High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), along with other miscellaneous weapons and armored vehicles, according to the State Department. This figure was also announced earlier Thursday by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is currently in Germany attending a meeting with defense ministers from around the world.

“In total, the secretary will announce $2.6 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine and its neighbors today. These announcements will bring the total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to approximately $15.2 billion since the beginning of this administration,” the official confirmed.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made light of the West’s response to the war, stating on Wednesday that Russia had “not lost anything” despite a flurry of sanctions that targeted Russian oligarchs and services that helped finance the invasion of Ukraine.

“I’m sure that we haven’t lost anything and we won’t lose anything,” Putin told an annual economic forum in Vladivostok, Russia. “The most important gain is the strengthening of our sovereignty, it’s an inevitable result of what’s going on.”

Putin went on to say that “a certain polarization is taking place, both in the world and inside the country,” something he said he thought was “only for the best.”  

“Everything unnecessary, harmful and everything that keeps us from moving forward will be abandoned,” he said, adding that Western sanctions were “a danger to the entire world.”