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.
In a press briefing on the Polish-Ukrainian border, following a visit that had until then been conducted under a media blackout for security reasons, Austin was asked what the US would see as a successful outcome to the two-month-long war.
“We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine,” the defence chief said.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the US has supplied more than $3.7bn-worth of arms to Kyiv, from Javelin anti-tank missiles and Switchblade combat drones to 90 howitzers to help combat Russia’s artillery.
The western military alliance Nato has said repeatedly it does not intend to fight directly in the conflict, but Austin’s comments also make clear that the US has become increasingly drawn into a proxy war – in which it has become the leading supplier of military aid.
Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, added that the US had put in place a strategy of “massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia” across Nato members. It was “having real results” he said, adding: “And we’re seeing that when it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing, Ukraine is succeeding.”
Russia said on Monday morning it had sent an official diplomatic note to Washington, warning it against sending more arms to Ukraine, according to the country’s ambassador to the US.
“We stressed the unacceptability of this situation when the United States of America pours weapons into Ukraine, and we demanded an end to this practice,” Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
Of the latest package, $322m consists of direct funding to Ukraine for its war effort, while the balance is for other Nato members to reinforce them after having supplied their own arms to Kyiv during the first phase of fighting.
The US will also sell Kyiv $165m of non-American ammunition compatible with the Soviet or Russian-made equipment used predominately by Ukraine’s armed forces – at a point Moscow is trying to concentrate its forces in the Donbas.
The assistance is also intended to help Ukraine’s armed forces transition to more advanced weapons and air defence systems, essentially Nato-capable systems,” the official said. Unlike previous assistance, it is not a donation of US military stockpiles, but rather cash that countries can use to purchase what that they might need.
Blinken also said US diplomats returning to Ukraine were likely to restaff the consulate in Lviv in western Ukraine before returning to Kyiv, the capital. They previously said the diplomats would start returning this week. The US embassy in Kyiv will remain closed for the moment.
A US official said Joe Biden would on Monday formally nominate Bridget Brink as US ambassador to Ukraine, a post that had remained vacant for more than two years. Brink, a career foreign service officer, has been US ambassador to Slovakia since 2019. .
In other developments:
Russian officials have confirmed that oil tanks at a depot in the city of Bryansk, about 110km (70 miles) from the border with Ukraine, have caught fire. It is not clear what caused the fire, videos of which posted on social media showed huge flames and plumes of smoke against the night sky. Nasa satellites that track fires show a burning fire at coordinates that correspond to a Rosneft facility.
Russia is planning a “staged referendum” in the southern city of Kherson aimed at justifying its occupation, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said in its latest intelligence report. “The city is key to Russia’s objective of establishing a land bridge to Crimea and dominating southern Ukraine,” the MoD said.
The OSCE, the world’s largest security body, has said it is “extremely concerned” after several of its Ukrainian members were believed to have been arrested in pro-Russian separatist territories in the country’s east.
Russian forces have regrouped to try to capture more territory in the south-eastern Donbas region, letting foreign leaders visit the capital and some western nations resume their diplomatic presence in the west of the country in recent weeks, but Washington has been cautious about a return amid sporadic Russian missile attacks in Lviv and the capital.
Austin will next travel to Germany, where he will host counterparts from more than 20 nations and the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, at the US airbase at Ramstein to discuss Ukraine’s defence needs, a Pentagon official said.
Topics for discussion will include battlefield updates, additional security assistance for Ukraine and longer-term defence needs in Europe, including how to step up military production to fill gaps caused by the war in Ukraine, officials added.
