Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi showed solidarity “ unequivocal from the United States to Ukraine, during a surprise visit on Saturday May 30 to kyiv where she met with President Volodymyr Zelensky. A week after the trip of the head of American diplomacy, the number 3 of Washington announced a ” additional support “.
In a video on Twitter, the Ukrainian president, flanked by armed guards, greets Nancy Pelosi and a congressional delegation outside the presidency in kyiv, before a meeting with the American delegation.
” Our delegation traveled to Kyiv to send an unequivocal and resounding message to the world: the United States stands with Ukraine “, according to a press release from the American delegation published at the end of the visit of their delegation. She must then go to Poland.
” More US support is on the way “, underline the American parliamentarians who assure that they will ” transform the president’s strong demand for funding (American Joe) Biden in a legislative package “.
Thank you for this strong gesture of support for Ukraine, from the United States, the people of the United States, Congress, bicameral and bipartisan support. As President, our team and the people of Ukraine, I greatly appreciate this gesture. Today, the United States is the leader of strong support for Ukraine in its war against the aggression of the Russian Federation.
Volodymyr Zelensky thanks US support during surprise visit by Nancy Pelosi
President Zelensky, for his part, welcomed the ” very important signals » donated by the United States and President Joe Bidenincluding the Lend-Lease program (“ Lend-Lease ”) for Ukraine. The latter plans to provide friendly countries with war material without intervening directly in the conflict.
Зустріч зі спікером Палати представників Конгресу США @SpeakerPelosi в Києві. Сполучені Штати є лідером потужної підтримки України в боротьбі з агресіѤю в боротьбі з агресіѤю Р. Дякуємо, що допомагаєте захищати суверенітет і територіальну цілісність ж нашоеї! pic.twitter.com/QXSBPFoGQh
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 1, 2022
This visit comes a week after the trip to kyiv by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. These two officials announced the gradual return of an American diplomatic presence in Ukraine and extra helpdirect and indirect, of more than 700 million dollars.
Evacuation of civilians from Mariupol
This visit took place as a first group of civilians was extracted overnight from Saturday to Sunday from the Azovstal steelworks, the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the port city of Mariupol, after intense negotiations. All previous evacuation attempts had failed in this area, which was almost completely destroyed after weeks of siege and came under almost complete control of Russian forces.
The Ukrainian Azov Battalion, which defends this industrial areareferred to ” 20 civilians, women and children “. But the Russian Defense Ministry told him that two groups of civilians, 25 and 21 people, were able to get out on Saturday, after the establishment of a ceasefire and the opening of a humanitarian corridor.
” Second stage ” of the war
The total conquest of Mariupol would allow Moscow to link the territories conquered in the south, in particular the Crimean peninsula annexed in 2014, to the pro-Russian separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in the east.
It is precisely on this eastern flank that the Russian army, numerically superior to its Ukrainian adversary and better endowed with artillery, is nibbling away at ground, seeking to hold it in a vice from the north and the south in order to complete its hold on the Donbass mining basin.
It’s about the ” second phase ” of ” special military operation launched on February 24 by Russian President Vladimir Putin, after the withdrawal of Russian forces from northern Ukraine and the kyiv region, which were defeated.