Russia should be “weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine”, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said after he and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, visited Kyiv and pledged a further $713m to help Ukraine in its war effort.
The direct comment came a few hours after the two senior US figures met Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy – and was followed by Russia making an official diplomatic complaint about American arms supplies.
