Ukraine aid sends Kremlin powerful message

The passage of $60 billion aid by the US House of Representatives will send a powerful message to the Kremlin that the United States will stay with Kyiv, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday. In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press", Zelensky repeatedly urged Washington to quickly pass the bill in Senate and proceed with actual transfer of weapons, particularly air defense systems which he described as priorities. Russia said yesterday that US lawmakers' approval of more aid for Ukraine showed that Washington was wading deeper into a hybrid war with Russia that would end in a humiliation on a par with Vietnam or Afghanistan. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine "to fight to the last Ukrainian" including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory. She said that ordinary Ukrainians were being "forcibly driven to slaughter as 'cannon fodder'" but that the US was now no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia.