The future of US aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after the new Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would pause foreign aid grants for 90 days.
Zelenskyy did not clarify whether humanitarian aid had been paused but Ukraine relies on the US for around 40% of its military needs.
“I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv.
The future of US aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office.
The American leader has repeatedly said he wouldn’t have allowed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to start if he had been in office, although he was president as fighting grew in the east of the country between Kyiv’s forces and separatists aligned with Moscow, ahead of Putin sending in tens of thousands of troops in 2022.
On Thursday, Trump told Fox News that Zelenskyy should have made a deal with Putin to avoid the conflict.
A day earlier, Trump also threatened to impose stiff tariffs and sanctions on Russia if an agreement isn’t reached to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said he had enjoyed “good meetings and conversations with President Trump” and that he believed the US leader would succeed in his desire to end the war.
“This can only be done with Ukraine and otherwise it simply will not work because Russia does not want to end the war and Ukraine does,” Zelenskyy said.
Eastern offensive
With Trump stressing the need to quickly broker a peace deal, both Moscow and Kyiv are seeking battlefield successes to strengthen their negotiating positions ahead of any prospective talks.
For the past year, Russian forces have been waging an intense campaign to punch holes in Ukraine’s defences in the Donetsk region to weaken Kyiv’s grip on the eastern parts of the country.
The sustained and costly offensive has compelled Kyiv to give up a series of towns, villages and hamlets.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed on Friday that Russian troops had fought their way into the centre of the strategically important eastern of Velyka Novosilka, although it was not possible to independently confirm the claim.
Elsewhere, three civilians were killed on Saturday in shelling in the Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Kherson region, the Moscow-installed Governor Vladimir Saldo said.
He urged the residents of Oleshky, which sits close to the frontline in southern Ukraine, to stay in their homes or in bomb shelters.
ADVERTISEMENTRussia also attacked Ukraine with two missiles and 61 Shahed drones overnight into Saturday.
Ukrainian air defences shot down both missiles and 46 drones, a statement from the air force said. Another 15 drones failed to reach targets due to Ukrainian countermeasures.
