Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, was received at the White House by his American counterpart Joe Biden.
The Ukrainian president continued his visit to the United States on Thursday September 21. He was received at the White House by his American counterpart Joe Biden. At the same time, as tension rises between Warsaw and kyiv, the Polish president downplayed the comments made the day before by his Prime Minister, believing that he had misunderstood. Franceinfo looks back at the highlights of the day.
Joe Biden receives Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House and promises new aid
Joe Biden will “ensure the world is on side” of Ukraine, he promised, speaking from the Oval Office alongside the Ukrainian president. Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that he had “begin [sa] day in the US Congress to thank parliamentarians and the American people for their great, immense support.”
Aware of the risk of weariness on the part of the great American ally, the Ukrainian president had in the morning warned Republican elected officials that his country risked losing the war if the flow of aid stopped abruptly. “I stressed that a victory for Ukraine would ensure that neither Russia nor any other dictatorship destabilizes the free world again”he indicated on X (formerly Twitter). “To win, we must stay united”he insisted.
At the Capitol, the atmosphere is less warm. On the Senate side, the majority is Democratic and the Republican opposition is mainly in favor of aid to Ukraine. On the side of the House of Representatives, dominated by conservatives, a handful of right-wing elected officials are calling for an immediate end to aid to kyiv.
The White House has already announced that the United States will deliver“important” means of anti-aircraft defense to Ukraine. But President Biden has “decided that it would not supply ATACMS missilesdeclared the national security adviser of the American executive, Jake Sullivan, during a press conference. “He did not rule out this possibility in the future,” he clarified.
Poland tries to calm things down
Polish President Andrzej Duda assured Thursday that his Prime Minister’s statement the day before announcing that Poland was stopping supplying arms to Ukraine had been misinterpreted.
>> Why tensions are rising between Ukraine and Poland
“Words [de Mateusz Morawiecki) ont été interprétées de la pire manière qui soit. (…) A mon avis, le Premier ministre voulait dire que nous ne transférerons pas à l’Ukraine le nouvel armement que nous sommes en train d’acquérir pour moderniser l’armée polonaise”, a déclaré Andrzej Duda à la chaîne de télévision TVN24.
Mercredi, Volodymyr Zelensky a fustigé, à l’ONU, que “certains pays feignent la solidarité [avec l’Ukraine] by indirectly supporting Russia”alluding directly to Poland.
Arrival in Istanbul of the first Ukrainian wheat ship since the end of the international agreement
The first wheat ship to leave a Ukrainian port since the end of the international agreement in the Black Sea has arrived in Istanbu (Turkey), according to real-time readings from the specialist site Marine Traffic. THE Resilient Africa, a 76 m long bulk carrier flying the flag of Palau and carrying three thousand tonnes of wheat destined for Israel, arrived “at anchor” in the Bosphorus shortly before 4 p.m. (local time), or 3 p.m. (Paris time), according to Marine Traffic.
This is a first since the end of the agreement on July 17 following Russia’s withdrawal. The cargo ship left the port of Chornomorsk on Tuesday, announced Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov.
Several Ukrainian cities bombed
An attack during the night from Wednesday to Thursday targeted several towns and left three people dead in Kherson (south). This new salvo of Russian cruise missiles fell on Ukraine a few hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech at the UN in which he castigated Moscow’s “criminal aggression”.
Ukraine warned on Thursday against “difficult months ahead”. The upcoming arrival of the cold season makes Ukrainian authorities fear that Moscow will relaunch a campaign of strikes to plunge the civilian population into darkness and cold, as in winter 2022. “Russia will continue to attack energy and essential installations” Ukrainians, warned the deputy head of the presidential administration, accusing the Russians of wanting “to sow panic and terror”. According to him, Russia’s “massive missile attack” was aimed “civilians, dormitories, gas stations, a hotel, energy and civil infrastructure”.