Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in a hurry to get U.S. support to the Kiev regime before the Biden Administration leaves office on Jan. 20, 2025, as evidenced by the busy day he had in Brussels yesterday. Blinken started out at NATO headquarters where he met with Secretary General Mark Rutte and with the North Atlantic Council, as well as with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. He finished the day meeting with both incoming and outgoing EU Foreign Affairs Representatives Kaja Kallas and Josep Borrell, and with U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
“The purpose of this visit is to focus our efforts on ensuring that Ukraine has the money, the munitions, and the mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025 or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength,” Blinken told reporters at NATO headquarters. He called the alleged introduction of North Korean forces into combat “a profound and incredibly dangerous development in two ways—first, of course, because it’s adding fuel to the fire for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and that’s of deep concern to everyone around the NATO table.” Secondly, “The relationship between Russia and North Korea is working in both directions, and there is deep concern about what Russia is or may be doing to strengthen North Korea’s capacities—its missile capacity, its nuclear capacity—as well as the experience that the North Korean forces are getting in their efforts to support Russia against Ukraine,” he said.
Not only is the U.S. continuing to support the Kiev regime, Blinken said, but Washington also expects Europe to do more than it has so far. “[W]e’re counting on European partners and others to strongly support Ukraine’s mobilization with training and equipment for these forces,” he said. “We need to see more artillery, more air defenses, more munitions getting to the Ukrainians, and we had a good conversation about all the work that allies and partners will be doing to step up to this moment as well.”
Blinken took a number of media questions, but the one he would not address, even though it was put to him twice, was on whether the Biden Administration would ever give Ukraine permission to use U.S.-supplied long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia. Both times he avoided it by addressing other issues included in the reporters’ questions.
