U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other U.S. lawmakers met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a trip to capital of Kyiv on Wednesday, where they underlined the need to support the Eastern European nation in its ongoing war with Russia.
“The freedom of the Ukrainian people remains under extraordinary threat, and on the eve of Ukrainian National Independence Day, I am glad to speak firsthand with those on the ground in order to help Ukrainians in need and move President’s [Joe] Biden’s request for additional Ukraine funding through Congress,” Warren said in a statement released through her office. “Ukrainians are on the frontlines in the battle for democracy and we must continue to support them.”
Warren, the chair of the Senate’s Armed Service Committee’s Subcommittee on Personnel, was joined on the trip by U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who also serve on the panel.
The bipartisan delegation also met with senior Ukrainian officials, including the nation’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, National Bank Gov. Andriy Pyshnyy, as well as staff from the U.S. Embassy.
The Wednesday visit was timed to coincide with Ukraine’s Independence Day celebration on Thursday, according to Warren’s office.
The visit also came on the same day news outlets reported that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, was listed as a passenger on a plane that crashed north of Moscow on Wednesday, leaving no survivors.
“An investigation has been launched into the Embraer plane crash that occurred tonight in the Tver region. According to the passenger list, among them is the name and surname of Yevgeny Prigozhin,” the Russian aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, said, according to the TASS news agency.
Biden, who is on vacation in Lake Tahoe, Calif., with his family, said he was “not surprised,” by the reports, the Guardian reported, citing Bloomberg News.
“I don’t know for fact what happened, but I am not surprised,” Biden said, according to Bloomberg News.
In Kyiv on Wednesday, Blumenthal said he and his Senate colleagues were there to deliver a “strong bipartisan message of U.S. and allied support,” to Zelenskyy and to the Ukrainian people.
“Ukraine needs F-16s with well-trained pilots immediately and longer-range artillery … to capitalize on the steady gains of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. It may be slow going and difficult, which we knew it would be, but it is solid, steady progress with a real prospect of significant breakthrough,” Blumenthal said.
Through Aug. 13, there were an estimated 9,444 civilian casualties as a result of the invasion, with 16,940 wounded, according to data compiled and verified by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The real tallies, however, could be much higher.
Graham, who was making his fourth trip to Ukraine, praised Ukrainians for their strength and resilience in the face of the invasion mounted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Ukrainians understand you don’t end wars by giving territory to the aggressor. If Putin is not stopped here, he will keep going,” Graham said in the statement released by Warren’s office. “He has repeatedly made that clear. And if Putin wins he will keep taking territory and that increases the chances that there will be a war between Russia and NATO, which would directly involve Americans in war. We do not want that.”
Warren and Blumenthal are scheduled to travel to Brussels, Belgium on Friday, where they are slated to meet with the U.S. Mission to the European Union, and to visit NATO’s headquarters there.
Warren and Blumenthal also are scheduled to meet with members of the European Parliament “to learn more about E.U. antitrust enforcement and discuss national security issues including the use of cryptocurrency to facilitate money-laundering,” Warren’s office said in its statement.
