On Saturday, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said that the first shipment of the promised security support package had arrived in Ukraine. Reuters was the first to report the news. The embassy tweeted photos of the consignment that reached late Friday night. It said that roughly “200,000 pounds of lethal aid” had reached Kyiv and the shipment included ammunition to help the front line defenders of the country.
Late last year, in December, the U.S. administration had promised a $200 million defense package to the country as it has faced several threats from Russia, including amassing of their troops on the border. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had visited Ukraine earlier this week. He met President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on January 19, 2022.
The defense aid was sent soon after his visit. There have been concerns not only in Kyiv but also among its Western allies as tens of thousands of Russian troops have been deployed at the border. The first part of the package has reached by January 22. However, Russia has said that it has not planned a new military offensive against Ukraine.
A post on Facebook said, “The United States will continue providing such assistance to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces in their ongoing effort to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity against Russian aggression.”
The defense minister of Ukraine thanked the U.S. for the aid.
Additionally, Washington has endorsed a move by NATO nations: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who said that they will also aid Ukraine with weapons that were made in the U.S. and are a part of the defense stockpile of these Baltic nations.
On Saturday, Blinken tweeted his salutations to the three former Soviet republics and commended them “for their longstanding support to Ukraine.”
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Meanwhile on Friday, top diplomats from both the U.S. and Russia said that they would continue talks. As the talks continue, preparations by both sides also seem to be taking place as defense on the border is shored up, as there is no breakthrough in the talks, as yet.
This is the worst security crisis since the Cold War. It is hoped that talks continue as the world is still reeling under the health and economic aftermaths of COVID-19 as well as the loss of millions of lives globally, to SARS-CoV-2.
