Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday, bringing promises of continued military and diplomatic support as the Russo-Ukrainian war enters its second month.

Blinken told reporters on Monday that he and Austin took a train from southwestern Poland to the capital of Kyiv, where they met with Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials for three hours in a secure conference room inside the Presidential palace.

“We’re seeing that when it comes to Russian war aims, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding,” Blinken said. "We don’t know how the rest of this war will unfold, but we do know that a sovereign, independent Ukraine will be around a lot longer than Vladimir Putin is on the scene. And our support going forward for Ukraine will continue until we see final success," he added.

U.S. Presidents and senior officials typically do not announce trips to war zones in advance out of security concerns. Zelenskyy said that Blinken and Austin were coming the day before; NBC News reported that the announcement caught Washington off-guard, prompting the Biden administration to re-evaluate whether it was still safe for them to go.

Blinken informed Kyiv that the White House would nominate Bridget Brink, the current U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, as ambassador to Ukraine. The move is a step toward resuming normal U.S. diplomatic operations in Ukraine, with the White House planning to reopen its embassy in Kyiv gradually. “I think that will take place over a couple of weeks, would be my expectation,” Blinken said, noting that U.S. diplomats will first return to the western city of Lviv. 

Blinken and Austin pledged $713 million in new security assistance for Ukraine and other partner countries in the region. A U.S. official told Reuters that the financing comes on top of another $322 million in military aid, bringing the total amount of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine since the war began to $3.7 billion.

Austin told reporters on Monday that the United States seeks to preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty while inflicting long-term damage on Moscow. The Russian military is currently struggling to get its sputtered military campaign back on track with a major new offensive in the country’s eastern Donbas region. "We want to see Ukraine remain a sovereign country, a democratic country able to protect its sovereign territory. We want to see Russia weakened to the point where it can't do things like invade Ukraine,” he said.

The Kremlin reportedly sent a diplomatic note to the United States earlier this month formally protesting Washington’s continued arms transfers to Ukraine, with Moscow warning that the shipments could bring “unpredictable consequences.”

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.