By Tom Balmforth
KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy elevated strain on america to let Kyiv strike deeper into Russian territory after his representatives met senior U.S. officers in Washington on Saturday.
Washington has supplied Ukraine with greater than $50 billion value of navy help since 2022, however has restricted using its weapons to Ukrainian soil and defensive crossborder operations.
“Clearing the Ukrainian sky of Russian guided aerial bombs is a powerful step to drive Russia to hunt an finish to the conflict and a simply peace,” Zelenskiy mentioned in his nightly video deal with.
Interesting to america, Britain, France and Germany, he mentioned, “We want the capabilities to really and totally defend Ukraine and Ukrainians.
“We want each the permissions for long-range capabilities and your long-range shells and missiles.”
With out offering specifics, he mentioned his representatives had “supplied all the mandatory particulars” to Ukraine’s companions.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, in Washington with a delegation on Friday and Saturday to fulfill U.S. officers and specialists, mentioned in an interview broadcast by CNN that Kyiv was displaying Russian airfields used to hit Ukrainian cities had been inside vary of deep strikes.
“We’ve defined what sort of capabilities we have to defend the residents towards the Russian terror that Russians are inflicting us, so I hope we had been heard,” Umerov mentioned within the interview late on Friday.
Zelenskiy is anticipated to ship the same plea in particular person subsequent month, when he’ll current a plan for victory to President Joe Biden close to the tip of his time within the Oval Workplace, and attend United Nations Common Meeting conferences in New York.
Economic system Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who headed Kyiv’s delegation, mentioned in a put up on X that she had mentioned the steps wanted to revive Ukraine’s vitality system, together with a “vital contribution” being made by an $800 million vitality sector financing bundle that was introduced in June.
Russian air strikes have affected greater than half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, she mentioned.
The president’s chief of employees Andriy Yermak joined Umerov in briefing U.S. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin in regards to the scenario on the battlefield within the first assembly of their go to on Friday, the presidential workplace mentioned in an announcement.
Talking on the finish of per week when Russia hit Ukraine with greater than 400 missiles and drones, Yermak mentioned it was essential for Ukraine to obtain weapons from present defence packages as quickly as attainable, the workplace mentioned.
(Extra reporting and writing by Elaine Monaghan in Bloomington, Indiana; extra reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv; enhancing by Christina Fincher)
