US Secretaries of State and Defense visit kyiv two months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The heads of diplomacy and defense USA should have arrived in kyiv this Sunday for their first visit since Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago, at a time when bloody fighting overshadows Orthodox Easter.

The visit of the US Secretaries of State, Anthony Blinkenand Defense, Lloyd Austinto the Ukrainian capital takes place when the war launched on February 24 by Moscow has left thousands dead and millions displaced.

Since the beginning of the conflict, several European leaders have traveled to kyiv to meet with the president Volodymyr Zelensky and provide support to Ukraine, but the United States had not so far sent any senior officials.

Blinken and Lloyd’s visit to Ukraine coincides with Easter celebrations in this largely Orthodox country.

Our souls are filled with a fierce hatred towards the invaders and all that they have done. Let’s not let anger destroy us inside,” Zelensky said in a statement marking the holiday.

Hours earlier, the president said he was preparing for “important talks with American allies.”

“The Americans are in kyiv today. Right now they are talking to the president,” an adviser to Volodimir Zelenski said in an interview broadcast on YouTube. Oleksiy Arestovich.

The talks on Sunday were mainly to deal with the supply of US weapons to Ukraine.

“Friendship and collaboration between Ukraine and the United States are stronger than ever,” Zelensky tweeted, without elaborating.

ArestovichMeanwhile, he reiterated on YouTube the Ukrainian government’s desire to be supplied with “offensive weapons.” “As long as we can’t fight back, there will be a” new Bucha “every day,” he launched, alluding to the city northwest of kyiv that has become a symbol of the atrocities committed during the Russian occupation of the region in March.

“American representatives would not come here if they were not willing to donate [armas]”, I consider.

On Saturday, Volodimir Zelenski had declared himself “grateful” to the US administration for the aid provided to Ukraine, but repeated that he wanted to obtain “even heavier and more powerful weapons” to confront the Russian army.

The US State Department declined to comment on the highly sensitive trip by two of President Joe Biden’s top cabinet members.

On his side, he Pope Francisco He renewed this Sunday before thousands of faithful in Saint Peter’s Square his call for a truce on the occasion of Orthodox Easter.

On the ground, Russian forces show no sign of reducing their attacks after a missile launch in the southern city of Odessawhich Ukraine says killed eight people, including a baby.

“Among the dead is a three-month-old baby. How did she threaten Russia? It seems that killing children is a new national idea of ​​the Russian Federation,” Zelensky said.

He also accused Russia of being a terrorist state and of acting like the Nazis in the devastated city of Mariupolheavily bombarded for weeks.

This Sunday, the Ukrainian government invited Russia to negotiate near the Azovstal industrial complex in that strategic southern port, where Ukrainian combatants and civilians are entrenched.

“We have invited the Russians to hold a special dialogue session right next to the Azovstal plant,” said an adviser to the Ukrainian president, Oleksiy Arestovich, indicating that he was “waiting for a response” from the Russian delegation.

the russian president Vladimir Putin he ordered his forces not to storm the plant, but the Ukrainians say the complex is under constant attack.

Call for a truce in Mariupol

The UN called for an “immediate” truce in Mariupol on Sunday to allow the evacuation of some 100,000 civilians who remain trapped in this city controlled almost entirely by the Russian army, according to a statement from its coordinator in Ukraine.

“We need a pause in the fighting right now to save lives. The longer we wait, the more lives will be threatened. They must be allowed to evacuate now, today. Tomorrow it will be too late,” Amin Awad said.

Mariupolwhich the Kremlin claims to have seized, is key to Russian military plans to carve out a land corridor between Russian-occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

A senior Russian military officer assured that his country’s goal is to take full control over the eastern region of Donbas and southern Ukraine.

For its part, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) indicated that it was “extremely concerned” by the detention of several of the members of its mission in pro-Russian separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, and called for their immediate release.

Several Ukrainian employees, who stayed in the country while others were evacuated, were “deprived of their liberty,” the OSCE denounced on Twitter.

More than five million Ukrainians have had to leave the country, where there are also millions of internally displaced people, according to the authorities.

In the western city of Lviv, Tetiana Kasian, 32, stopped to gaze at a wall filled with flowers in memory of the dead.

“I never thought this could happen in Ukraine in the 21st century,” said Kasian, who fled from Mariupol. “I don’t know if I’ll see my parents” again, she added.

Easter Sunday

Although the fighting spread throughout most of the country, many braved the bombs to receive the traditional blessing on Orthodox Easter, which Ukrainians celebrated this Sunday.

On the front lines of the eastern city of Limán, soldiers exchanged the customary patriotic salute of “Glory to Ukraine!” for “Christ is Risen!”

About fifty civilians gathered in the small local Orthodox church, with artillery fire echoing in the background.

“If we make wrong decisions, the darkness will destroy us, as the darkness is destroying us during this war,” the priest said in his sermon.

And while many Ukrainians fled the conflict, others stayed, either because of rootedness, being too old or too sick to travel, or simply because they had no other choice.

“I have to work,” said farmer Vasili Kushch, 63, in the southern Ukrainian village of Mala Tokmashka, standing near a pile of bomb-caused rubble. “I have nowhere to go,” he added.

His village, not far from the invisible line that separates the pro-Russian forces from the Ukrainian ones, wakes up every night with the rockets crossing the sky.

Missile in Odessa

The modest Easter celebrations came a day after a missile hit a residential building in the port city of Odessaon the shores of the Black Sea, killing eight people and leaving 18 injured, according to Zelenski, who indicated that five missiles hit the city.

“We will identify those responsible for this attack, those responsible for Russian terror,” he added.

The Russian Ministry of Defense He assured that he had targeted an arms depot near Odessa, breaking the calm that city had had since the beginning of the war.