United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have planned to visit Ukraine on Sunday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed.
Zelenskyy on Saturday said he is planning to meet with Blinken and Austin but did not provide any information.
The White House has refused to comment Saturday. A State Department spokesperson refused to comment.
The trip would mark the highest-ranking U.S. officials to visit Ukraine since Russia called for a full-scale military operation in Ukraine.
Biden said on April 14 that he was working with his foreign policy team to check whether he should send a senior member of his administration to Ukraine in what would be a potentially dramatic show of support.
A number of other Western leaders have visited Ukraine, specifically after Russian military withdrew from the region surrounding Kyiv.
For weeks, Zelenskyy has pleaded with the U.S. and other Western allies to send Ukraine more weapons to counter the Russian invasion, including its ramped-up operations in the Donbas region and in the south.
Last month, Blinken & Austin met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba as well as Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov in Warsaw, Poland, on the margins of President Biden’s trip to Europe. The two also toured Ukraine’s border with Poland.
