U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken looks at a damaged vehicle while touring a State Border Guard of Ukraine Detached Commandant Office of Security and Resource Supply site September 7, 2023, in the Kyiv Oblast.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
YAHIDNE, Ukraine — Ukraine’s military is making “very tangible progress” in its counteroffensive against Russian forces, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC News on Thursday.
Speaking on a trip to underscore ongoing U.S. support for Ukraine’s fight, he acknowledged the challenge of keeping public attention on the conflict while rejecting concerns that American backing for Kyiv may be waning. He also placed the blame for a lack of peace talks at the door of the Kremlin.
The military campaign in Ukraine’s south and east is seen as key to shoring up allied support for the country’s cause, and after a slow start there have been positive signs.
Ukrainians “knew this was going to be a hard fight but especially over the last couple of weeks, we are seeing very tangible progress,” Blinken said in an interview.
He said that he had heard a very detailed report from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who recently visited the front lines, and his military advisers.
“I think we are seeing real forward movement,” Blinken added. “But again, this is going to go on. This is tough, this is hard.”
He was speaking during a visit to the town of Yahidne in northern Ukraine, where he toured a former elementary school in which some 300 people, including children, were held for a month by Russian forces shortly after last year’s invasion. The site has since been turned into a museum.
“The Russians had a lot of time in this case to prepare for the counteroffensive. They put tens of thousands of mines in places, other defensive fortifications,” he said. “The Ukrainians are working and going through it, but at the end of the day, they have a determination, they have a desire that will outmatch whatever the Russians put into this.”
Russian missile attack shows ‘what this means’
Blinken, the first senior U.S. official to visit since the Ukrainian counteroffensive began three months ago, flew into Kyiv on Wednesday where he met with Zelenskyy and other senior members of his government.
The first day of his visit was marred by a Russian missile attack on a market in the eastern city of Kostiantynivka. Ukrainian officials said 17 people, including a child, were killed and 38 injured in the strike.
“These were people…
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