KYIV: President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call with the speaker of the US House of Representatives on Thursday said that it was vital that Congress passes a new military assistance package for Kyiv rapidly.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has been holding a bill for months that would provide $60 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine.
Zelensky in a post on social media platform on X, said speedy passage of US assistance to Ukraine by Congress is crucial. He said that there are differce of views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed further, but the key is to keep the issue of assistance to Ukraine as a unifying factor.
Ukrainian troops are far behind in the battlefield against Russia due to shortages of artillery supplies as the US aid held up in Congress and the European Union failed to deliver munitions on time that it had committed earlier.
Zelensky in a statement, said he briefed Johnson about the battlefield situation and also talked about the dramatic increase in Russia’s air strikes.
Russia Last Friday carried out its largest air strike on Ukraine’s energy system since February 2022, destroying power units of a major dam and causing outage for more than a million people.
Moscow has termed ts recent attacks as part of a series of revenge strikes in response to Ukrainian attacks on regions of Russia. Russia has enhanced its use of ballistic missiles on Ukraine. However, it denies targeting civilians, though many have been killed in the strikes.
