Defense Secretary Austin arrives in Ukraine amid Russian gains and imminent US election

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv early Monday morning, as the future of US aid to Ukraine hangs in the balance of the imminent US presidential election and as Russia continues to make small but steady gains on the battlefield.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin arrived in Kyiv early Monday morning, as the future of US aid to Ukraine hangs in the balance of the imminent US presidential election and as Russia continues to make small but steady gains on the battlefield. Austin will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov while in Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s weapons needs and how the US can continue to support the country’s military over the next year, the secretary told a small group of reporters traveling with him to Kyiv on Sunday night. The secretary’s visit will also serve as a moment for him to “step back” and look at the “arc” of the US-Ukraine relationship over the last two and a half years of war, a senior defense official said. It will not be a victory lap, however. The Ukrainians are in a “very tough” situation against the Russians heading into winter, the official noted. That is despite the heavy Western sanctions imposed on Russia’s economy in response to its invasion, billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment the US has surged to Ukraine, and the multinational coalitions that the Biden administration rallied from the earliest days of the war to help Ukrainian troops beat back Russian advances. Loud explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in the early hours of Monday local time, according to a CNN producer on the ground, in a stark illustration of the daily bombardments the country still faces more than 2.5 years into Moscow’s grinding war. City authorities said air defenses have been activated.