Photo: W.G. Dunlop/Pool via REUTERS
Military expert Alexei Leonkov told Izvestia on 20 November that Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin's visit to Kiev was necessary to demonstrate support for Ukraine.
Earlier on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin arrived in Kiev to meet with Ukraine's leadership. The Pentagon press service noted that they planned to discuss a long-term vision for the future of Ukraine's military at the meeting.
As Leonkov noted, the main goal is to show that the United States supports Ukraine.
"And Austin is more likely to say in closed-door meetings what specific additional military assistance Ukraine will receive from other sources, because Austin said in his speech, which was widely quoted, that they will support Ukraine as long as it is needed," the military expert said.
The visit, he said, shows that the United States does not intend to abruptly end the "Ukrainian project", although the first signs of this have already appeared.
Earlier, on 13 November, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhnyi had a telephone conversation with the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), Charles Brown. After the meeting, Zaluzhnyi said that he explained the current situation in detail to Brown. The commander-in-chief of Ukraine's armed forces also discussed plans for the winter with Brown.
Moreover, later, on November 17, Defense One reported that members of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada complained about ammunition shortages amid the U.S. decision to divert shells reserved for Ukraine to Israel.
(Izvestia/JaV)
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