Blinken travels to Kyiv to show his support for the country's offensive

Wednesday, hours after Russia launched a missile attack on the city, the U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made an unannounced visit to the Ukrainian capital in an effort to express confidence in Kyiv’s forces in the face of a grueling counteroffensive.

According to U.S. officials, Blinken’s visit was intended to evaluate Ukraine’s three-month-old counteroffensive and signal continued U.S. support, as some Western allies have expressed concerns about Ukraine’s progress in driving out Russian forces after 18 months of war.

To honor Ukrainian military personnel who died defending the nation, Blinken laid a wreath at the Berkovetske cemetery in Kyiv after arriving there.

“We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, not only to succeed in the counteroffensive but also for the long term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent,” Blinken said during the visit.

We are also determined to keep collaborating with our partners as they establish and restore a robust economy and democracy.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, said during a conference call with journalists that U.S. assistance to Ukraine “can’t influence the course of the special military operation.

Blinken will discuss the ongoing counteroffensive and reconstruction efforts with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the nation’s prime minister, and its foreign minister.

Wednesday also saw the Ukrainian parliament approve Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker, as Zelenskyy’s choice for new defense minister.

Blinken spoke with Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, who was also in Kiev on business, about the war as they rode the train to Kyiv. According to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, Blinken thanked her for Denmark’s leadership in a coalition training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s and for promising to donate the fighter jets to Ukraine.

Following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and its repeated shelling of port facilities in the Odesa region, from which the majority of grain is exported, discussions will be held about alternative export routes for Ukrainian grain, according to Washington officials.