President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Three senior US security officials held a video call with a group of their Ukrainian counterparts to discuss military aid to Kiev, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff said on Saturday.
“We discussed further provision of necessary assistance to our country, in particular vehicles, weapons and ammunition,” Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.
Yermak said he, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, top general Valeriy Zaluzhnyi and several other senior commanders and officials had attended the meeting.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, top military commander Mark Milley and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan represented the other side.
Yermak did not provide details of specific requests to the US side.
The meeting came as Kiev tries to collect enough weapons from its Western backers, of which the United States has been the most important, to launch a counter-offensive and try to take back territory captured by Moscow last year.
Yermak added that Zelenskyy had joined the meeting at the end to give his views on the liberation of Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia since its invasion nearly 13 months ago.
“We informed our allies in detail about the current situation at the front, combat operations in the most difficult areas, as well as the urgent needs of the Ukrainian army,” Yermak said.
Ukrainian forces on Friday continued to resist Russian assaults on the ruined city of Bakhmut, the focus of eight months of Russian efforts to advance through the industrial Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that borders Russia.