Joe Biden to announce new ambassador to Ukraine on Monday after US officials’ secrecy-shrouded visit to Kyiv
Washington’s top diplomat and defence secretary have announced a gradual return of US diplomats to the country, fresh military financing, and the nomination of a new ambassador during the first official US visit to Ukraine since Russia invaded.
During talks in Kyiv secretary of state Antony Blinken and secretary of defence Lloyd Austin told Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the US would provide more than $300m in military financing and had approved a $165m sale of ammunition, bringing total US security assistance since the invasion to about $3.7bn, a US official said. More than $400m will also be split among 15 other nations in central and eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Russian officials have confirmed that oil tanks at a depot in the city of Bryansk, around 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 ministry 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.
