Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that the United States had not stopped its military aid to Ukraine after new U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would suspend foreign aid grants for 90 days.
Zelensky did not say whether humanitarian aid had been suspended. Ukraine depends on the United States for 40% of its military needs.
“I’m focusing on military aid; it hasn’t been stopped, thank God,” he said at a news conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.
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The two leaders met in kyiv on Saturday to discuss the energy needs of the Russian-occupied Moldovan region of Transnistria, which saw its natural gas supplies cut off on January 1 due to Ukraine’s decision to halt the transit of Russian gas. Ukraine said it could offer coal to Transnistrian authorities to make up the deficit.
The future of U.S. aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Trump begins his second term. The US leader has repeatedly said he would not have allowed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to begin if he had been in power, although he was president as fighting intensified in the is the country between the forces of kyiv and the separatists aligned with Moscow, before Putin. sending tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump told Fox News that Zelensky should have made a deal with Putin to avoid conflict. A day earlier, Trump also threatened to impose harsh tariffs and sanctions on Russia if a deal was not reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Rubio sent an order to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts ordering a pause on “all new funding obligations, pending review, for foreign assistance programs funded by or through the Department and USAID.” THE message was consistent with decree Mr. Trump signed a reassessment of American foreign aid on Monday. The impact of the decision on U.S. foreign aid to Ukraine and other countries is not immediately clear.
The order, obtained by CBS News, states that within the U.S. government, “it is currently impossible to access sufficient information in one place to determine whether foreign aid policies and interests supported by The credits are not duplicative, effective, and consistent with President Trump’s foreign policy. »
Speaking in kyiv on Saturday, Zelensky said he enjoyed “good meetings and conversations with President Trump” and believed the US leader would achieve his desire to end the war.
“This can only be done with Ukraine, otherwise it simply will not work because Russia does not want to end the war, and Ukraine wants it,” Zelensky said.
Brutal offensive in the East
As Trump emphasizes the need to quickly negotiate a peace deal, Moscow and kyiv are seeking battlefield successes to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any possible negotiations.
Over the past year, Russian forces have waged an intense campaign aimed at breaking through Ukraine’s defenses in the Donetsk region and weakening kyiv’s grip on eastern parts of the country. The sustained and costly offensive forced kyiv to abandon a series of towns, villages and hamlets.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Friday that Russian troops had forced their way into the center of the strategically important area east of Velyka Novosilka, although it could not be independently confirmed. this statement.
Elsewhere, three civilians were killed Saturday in shelling in the Russian-occupied zone of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Moscow-based governor Vladimir Saldo said.
He urged residents of Oleshky, located near the front line in southern Ukraine, to stay at home or in bomb shelters.
Russia also attacked Ukraine with two missiles and 61 Shahed drones on Saturday night. Ukrainian air defenses shot down missiles and 46 drones, an air force statement said. Fifteen other drones failed to hit their targets due to Ukrainian countermeasures.
The downed drones caused damage in the kyiv, Cherkasy and Khmelnytskyi regions, with Ukrainian emergency services saying five people were believed to have come from a 9-story building in the Ukrainian capital.
Russia also struck the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine with drones, causing casualties and damage, local authorities said on Saturday.
Drones targeted Shevchenkivskyi, Kyivskyi and Kholodnohirskyi districts, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
Russia used a Molniya drone – a low-cost weapon developed and recently deployed by Russia – in the Shevchenkivskyi district, starting a fire. The attacks disrupted the city’s water and electricity supplies, the mayor said.
Terekhov said the number of casualties was still to be determined, while Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said three people, two women and a man, were injured in the strikes.