US President Apologizes For Delayed Military Support For Ukraine
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
PARIS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – U.S. President Joe Biden has, for the first time, publicly apologized to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for the months of delay in American military assistance that Kyiv said cost lives and allowed Russia to make gains on the battlefield.
On Friday, Biden also pledged a further $225 million in military aid to Ukraine when meeting Zelenskyy in Paris, France. “You haven’t bowed down, you haven’t yielded at all, you continue to fight in a way that is … just remarkable. We are not going to walk away from you.”
Biden said: “I apologize for those weeks of not knowing,” referring to the uncertainty while U.S. Congress waited six months before sending a $61 billion military aid package for Ukraine in April.
“Some of our very conservative members [of Congress] were holding it up. But we got it done, finally,” he added.
Biden claimed that the American people were standing by Ukraine for the long haul despite polls suggesting that inflation and immigration rank among the top U.S. concerns.
“We’re still in. Completely. Thoroughly.”
Zelenskiy said in English: “It’s very important that … all American people stay with Ukraine like it was during the Second World War. United States helped to save human lives, to save Europe.”
Biden and Zelenskiy met after attending the 80th anniversary of “D-Day.” The June 6, 1944, Allied invasion of Normandy was the largest seaborne invasion in history and helped end World War Two.
NAZI DOMINATION
In Normandy, Biden compared the fight to liberate Europe from Nazi domination to today’s battle against “Russian aggression,” referring to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as a tyrant.
The U.S. is by far Kyiv’s biggest supplier of wartime support, and Ukraine is trying to fend off an intense Russian offensive in eastern areas of the country.
The push is focused on the Ukrainian border regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk, but Ukrainian officials say it could spread as Russia’s bigger army seeks to expand its advantage.
However, Moscow said Friday that Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons against targets in Russia demonstrates Washington’s deep involvement in the conflict.
It has prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies to increase nuclear threats against the West.
Despite the worst tensions since the official end of the Cold War, Germany’s government announced it would permit Ukraine to use German-supplied weapons against military targets in Russia.
It came after Russian ballistic missiles slammed into an apartment building in Kharkiv city overnight, Ukrainian officials said, killing at least five people. Julia, a mother of one, told Worthy News earlier about her concern about her city describing horrific mornings for her and her baby.
AIR DEFENSE
Zelenskyy said, “The key to positive changes for us on the front and in the war overall is air defense.”
Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, noted that “all five Nordic countries have now entered into bilateral agreements on security cooperation with Ukraine. This sends an important signal to the Ukrainian people that our engagement is firm and lasting.”
Speaking after a separate meeting of NATO ministers in the Czech capital Prague, the Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said: “self-defense is not escalation.”
Stoltenberg also stressed, “As this war has evolved, NATO support has evolved. And I welcome that allies are easing restrictions on the use of weapons.”
Besides facing potential Russian military threats, several NATO nations have also endured suspected cyber attacks instigated by Moscow.
The latest country was Poland, where the Polish press agency has “probably been the target of a Russian cyberattack,” said Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson of the minister coordinating special services.
The announcement came after officials said a false story “on military mobilization” appeared on PAP’s news feed.
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