HOUSTON: U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken has said that Russia has failed to destroy the nation of Ukraine. He said U.S. diplomats would return to Ukraine soon and hoped the embassy in Kiev would reopen in a few weeks. “Russia is failing,” he told reporters. “Ukraine is winning, Russia has suffered significant military losses in Ukraine,” Blinken said. He said Russia did not have the capacity to make up for the losses in Ukraine and that the Pentagon was working to ensure that.
Blinken’s revelation came after a dangerous and secret visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. He was accompanied by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin. Austin said the meeting in Germany would discuss in more detail how Ukraine could win against Russia. “We want to do what Russia can do during the Ukraine occupation,” he said.
Within two months of the start of the war, the Biden administration had steadily increased military aid to Ukraine. At the same time, the US has imposed extensive sanctions aimed at undermining the Russian economy. Top US defense officials have argued that the United States wants to demote the Russian war machine, reflecting the growing courage of the Biden administration.
Russia, meanwhile, stepped up its missile strikes after meeting with US President Vladimir Selensky, a senior US diplomat and defense official. Russia fired missiles at at least five railway stations across central and western Ukraine on Monday morning. The missile attack was part of a broader offensive aimed at destroying crucial infrastructure in Ukraine. They come at a time when the United States and its allies are stepping up efforts to supply heavy weapons to counter Russia’s new offensive to seize control of the country’s eastern industrial heartland.
Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III also met with Selensky for three hours on Sunday evening. She said she had traveled by train from the capital but the details of the trip were secret. It is not clear when they crossed the border from Ukraine into Poland, but at the same time that the strike was reported, they held a press conference in a warehouse in Poland.
“Five railway stations in central and western Ukraine were on fire this morning,” said Alexander Kamishin, Ukraine’s chief railway official, in a telegram post at 8:30 a.m. Monday. Local officials in the Shitomir, Rivne and Liv areas reported special attacks on the railways. A video posted by Liv Governor Maxim Kozitsky shows black smoke rising from a train station in the village of Krasnoyarsk about an hour outside the city. ‘There is no information about the victims,’ he wrote in a telegram post, but emergency services are working on the spot to assess the damage. Kozitovsky said the attack was carried out by a Russian TU-95 strategic bomber flying over the southeastern part of the country. The bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a U.S. military base, striking Ukraine’s missile defense system, he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Emmanuel Macro on his re-election as President of France. “I sincerely wish you success in your endeavors, as well as good health and well-being,” Putin said in a congratulatory note to Macro published by the Kremlin. Macro is one of the few Western politicians willing to engage with Putin. The Kremlin reports that the two presidents have had nine telephone conversations since the war began on February 24.