LIVE – Ukraine: Zelensky thanks Biden for US aid expected to arrive “quickly”

This live has now ended.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, after a phone call with his US counterpart Joe Biden, that the two countries had “started working on a bilateral security agreement”.

“Our teams – Ukraine and the United States – have started working on a bilateral defense agreement,” said Mr. Zelensky said in his daily speech, and assured that Kyiv and Washington have made progress on the delivery of the US long-range ATACMS. Missiles.

Joe Biden this Monday, in a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, pledged to “swiftly” send “significant” military aid, once the US Congress approves a new $61 billion package for Kyiv.

“The United States will soon provide significant new military assistance to meet Ukraine's urgent battlefield and air defense needs,” a White House spokesman said, after the US Senate passed a massive aid package approved by the House of Representatives last Saturday. Publish their phone conversation report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked his US counterpart Joe Biden by phone on Monday for his “unrecognized support” for his country, after the House of Representatives unveiled a new US aid plan.

“I am grateful to Joe Biden for his unwavering support for Ukraine and his true global leadership,” Zelensky said at X, as his US counterpart promised the new aid package would be “quick and powerful and strengthen our resistance”. Aircraft, long-range and artillery defense capabilities.

A strike destroyed a television tower in Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, on Monday. In the images, we see the spire of the tower falling to the ground. Local officials said the signal was interrupted.

A television tower in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second city, was destroyed after a Russian strike that caused no casualties, regional officials said, reporting a signal disruption.

A nearby AFP reporter noted that the 240-meter-tall building collapsed halfway through. “The invaders attacked a television infrastructure in Kharkiv,” said regional governor Oleg Synegoubov.

The deployment of nuclear weapons in Poland has been the subject of discussions between Warsaw and Washington. In June 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the transfer of nuclear weapons to Belarus.

Russia says it has captured a village southwest of the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a fresh advance by its military against struggling Ukrainian troops.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced in a press release that it had “liberated” Novomykhalivka, thirty kilometers from Donetsk and not far from Voukleder at the junction of the southern and eastern flanks, which Russia had been trying to capture for two years. . Russian forces regularly claim the capture of villages, while the Ukrainian army faces shortages of ammunition and new recruits.

The Kremlin says Russia will take steps to “guarantee” its security if Poland keeps nuclear weapons on its territory, a possibility the Polish president raised in an interview.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “The military will certainly examine the situation and take all necessary countermeasures for our security.

Europeans pledge they will continue to help Ukraine after the US gave Kyiv nearly $61 billion in aid. “We have to move forward, this is an important moment,” Latvian diplomatic chief Baiba Brace said this morning in Luxembourg as she arrived at a meeting of the EU's foreign and defense ministers.

Document LCI – In Kharkiv, residents live under the constant threat of Russian missiles and drones. The town hall is pushing for classrooms to open at five metro stations in the city when the school year starts in September.

The situation on the Ukrainian front will worsen in mid-May and early June, a “difficult period,” Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrillo Budanov has warned, amid growing fears of a new Russian offensive. “We think we have a difficult situation ahead of us in the future, but we have to understand that it will not be catastrophic,” he said in a BBC interview.

The Ukrainian military is already going through a delicate period, facing shortages of new recruits and ammunition due to significant delays in Western aid, particularly the Americans. Opposite, Russian troops, vastly outnumbered and better armed, continue to push eastward, regularly demanding the capture of small villages in the Donbass.

Poland is ready to welcome nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO decides to strengthen its eastern flank in the face of Russia's deployment of new weapons in neighboring Kaliningrad and Belarus, Polish President Andrzej Duda told a popular daily. true

According to him, “Russia is increasingly militarizing the Kaliningrad enclave. It is in the process of transferring its nuclear weapons to Belarus”, two territories of Poland. In June 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the transfer of the first nuclear weapons to Belarus.

The US House of Representatives on Saturday voted in favor of new military and economic aid to Ukraine. The next step: A vote, expected Tuesday, by the Senate.

• Russia claimed on Sunday to capture Pokhdanivka, between Pakmut and Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine. “Units of the 'South' troop group have completely liberated the town of Bogdanovka (Russian name, author's note) in the Donetsk People's Republic,” the Russian Defense Ministry assured in a press release.

• Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview with the US Senate, called for confirmation of $61 billion in aid to Ukraine. American channel NBC News. “We will have a chance to win if Ukraine gets the weapons system that thousands of soldiers desperately need,” the Ukrainian president said.

• Ukraine said on Sunday morning it had attacked the Kommouna, a Russian military ship bound for Crimea. “The nature of the damage is being verified,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said on X. Launched in 1915, the Kommouna is one of the oldest Russian warships still in operation. It is responsible for high seas salvage, sunken submarines or lost cargo.

Hello everyone, welcome to this live stream to follow the latest news about the war in Ukraine.