Ukraine war: Your fight is a fight for everyone, Pelosi tells Zelensky, during US delegation’s trip to Kyiv
- Pelosi, next in line to US presidency after vice-president, is highest ranking American official to visit Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in February
- ‘Thank you for your fight for freedom’, she says; meanwhile, millions of tons of grain stuck in ports or on ships needs to ‘get out into world to alleviate food crisis’, says UN
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US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has led a Congressional delegation to Kyiv to meet with Ukraine’s president before heading to Poland for talks with officials there.
Pelosi, next in line to the presidency after the vice-president, is the highest-ranking American leader to visit Ukraine since the war began in February.
Her visit, as Russia’s offensive in coastal southern Ukraine and the country’s eastern industrial heartland has Ukrainian forces fighting village by village and yet more civilians fleeing air strikes and artillery shelling, marked a major show of continuing support for the nation’s struggle.
“Our delegation travelled to Kyiv to send an unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine,” Pelosi said in a statement on Sunday.
The US lawmakers had a three-hour meeting with Zelensky and his administration, talking about sanctions, weapons and aid assistance.
Footage released by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office showed Pelosi and other US legislators in Kyiv. In video later released by Pelosi’s office, the speaker and Zelensky thanked each other for their support in the war.
“We’ll win and we’ll win together,” Zelensky said. Pelosi said the group was visiting “to say thank you for your fight for freedom”.
“We are on a frontier of freedom and your fight is a fight for everyone. Our commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done,” she added.
The trip to Kyiv was not previously announced. The delegation went on to Poland afterwards, which has taken in more than 3 million refugees from Ukraine since Russia launched its war on February 24.
In a news conference in Poland, Pelosi said she and her delegation applauded the courage of the Ukrainian people and brought Zelensky “a message of appreciation from the American people for his leadership”.
The visit to Ukraine came two days after US President Joe Biden asked Congress for US$33 billion to bolster the nation’s fight against Russia, more than twice the size of the initial US$13.6 billion aid measure that Congress enacted early last month and is now almost drained.
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Ukrainian forces optimistic they can hold off Russian advance in Donbas region
Meanwhile, the United Nations has warned that the war is having serious effects on its ability to deliver urgently needed food aid to countries around the world, as much of it is stuck in Ukrainian ports.
“Currently, almost 4.5 million tons of grain are stuck in Ukrainian ports and on ships and cannot be used,” said Martin Frick, the director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in Germany.
Exporting the food is very difficult as Ukrainian ports and maritime routes to the country are inaccessible due to Russia’s invasion.
Before the war, Ukraine was one of the world’s most important producers of wheat and a large producer of corn.
Many countries are dependent on cheap wheat from Ukraine. The grain is also crucial for global food aid.
Frick said the WFP has so far provided food aid to some 2.5 million Ukrainians, most of them in Ukraine and a few hundred thousand in Moldova.
“Food needs to get to the trapped and suffering people in Ukraine, but equally it needs to get out of the region and into the world to alleviate a global food crisis,” Frick said.
The WFP needed humanitarian access, to the people and the ports, so food exports could resume, Frick said, adding: “Hunger must not be a weapon.”
On Sunday, Russia suggested it could seize the Russian-based assets of countries it deems hostile in retaliation for a US proposal to sell off Russian oligarchs’ assets and pay the proceeds to Ukraine.
“As far as companies based in Russian territory are concerned whose owners are citizens of hostile countries and where the decision has been taken” to seize Russian assets, “it is fair to take reciprocal measures and confiscate assets,” said the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin.
“And the proceeds from the sale of these assets will be used for our country’s development,” he said on his Telegram channel.
Volodin accused “a certain number of hostile countries – Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and even the United States” – of flouting international law and “resorting to pure theft”.
In southeastern Ukraine, Moscow is pushing for complete control of the Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists already controlled parts of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces before the invasion.
Russian forces carried out missile strikes across the south and east on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said.
On Sunday, Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov warned residents in the north and east of the city of Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, to remain in their shelters due to heavy Russian shelling. Reuters could not immediately verify reports of shelling in the area.
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of the Luhansk region, in the east, urged residents on Sunday to evacuate while it was still possible.
President Zelensky said in a late-night video address on Saturday that Russia was “gathering additional forces for new attacks against our military in the east of the country” and “trying to increase pressure in the Donbas”.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse, dpa, Kyodo, Reuters
