Rehoboth Beach, United States—President Joe Biden on Saturday (Sunday in Manila) told Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky he is “confident” the US Congress will renew war aid, but added that without American help Kyiv could lose further territory to Russian advances.
“I spoke with Zelensky this afternoon to let him know I was confident we’re going to get that money,” Biden told reporters after attending church service in Delaware.
Failure by US lawmakers to approve new funding for military aid to Kyiv would be “absurd” and “unethical,” he said, adding: “I’m going to fight to get them the ammunition they need.”
The leaders spoke hours after Russia captured the eastern Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, a major symbolic victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Avdiivka, now mostly destroyed, had been a symbol of Ukraine’s determined resistance to Russian aggression since 2014.
The White House said in a statement the Ukrainian withdrawal from the town came “after Ukrainian soldiers had to ration ammunition due to dwindling supplies as a result of congressional inaction, resulting in Russia’s first notable gains in months.”
Biden told reporters he is not confident another Ukrainian city won’t fall to Russian forces without an infusion of US aid.
“I’m not. I’m not. No one can be,” he said.
With existing US funding already dried up, former president Donald Trump’s allies in the House of Representatives have been stalling $60 billion in military aid.
Trump, the likely Republican nominee in the November presidential election, opposes helping Kyiv and recently used his sway to kill a US border reform bill that would have also authorized additional aid to Ukraine.
In a post on Telegram following the phone call, Zelensky said: “I am glad that I can count on the full support of the American president. We also believe in the wise decision of the US Congress.”
The statements of US support came as Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken were scrambling to reassure Western allies at the Munich Security Conference that Washington’s support of Kyiv’s war effort against the Russian invasion would continue.
Speaking in Munich earlier Saturday alongside Zelensky, Harris said: “As it relates to our support for Ukraine, we must be unwavering and we cannot play political games.”
Earlier Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told a security conference in Munich: “The ability to save our people is the most important task for us.
“In order to avoid being surrounded, it was decided to withdraw to other lines.”
“This does not mean that people retreated some kilometres and Russia captured something,” he added. “It did not capture anything.”
Earlier, Ukraine’s newly appointed commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky said he had “decided to withdraw our units from the city and switch to defence on more favourable lines”.
A number of Ukrainian servicemen were captured in the operation, several military officials said.
It was Syrsky’s first major decision since his appointment, at a time when Ukraine faces mounting pressures in the east because of ammunition shortages, with a $60-billion US military aid package held up in Washington.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson put some of the blame for Kyiv’s latest setback on Congress.
Zelensky nevertheless remained optimistic after speaking with US President Joe Biden by telephone from Munich.
“I am grateful to have President Biden’s full support,” he said.
“I also believe that the US Congress will make a wise decision.”
Biden too, remained upbeat.
“I spoke with Zelensky this afternoon to let him know that I was confident we’re going to get that money,” Biden told reporters after attending church in Delaware.
On the eastern front line, one Ukrainian serviceman told AFP that withdrawing was “the right decision given the lack of weapons and artillery shells, because if we don’t save the lives of the soldiers, we will soon have no one left to fight”.
Avdiivka lies in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, which the Kremlin has claimed to be part of Russia since a 2022 annexation that remains unrecognised by nearly all United Nations members.
In July 2014, it briefly fell into the hands of pro-Russian separatists before returning to Ukrainian control.
But the Ukrainian army faced renewed Russian assaults including in the eastern Donetsk region.
“I’m used to the sound of shelling,” said Viktor, in the village of Progres, some 30 kilometres (around 20 miles) west of Avdiivka. “It’s been ongoing since 2014 already, but now much more tense — and louder.”
The pensioner was cycling to the last open shop to buy bottles of fresh water before it closed for good, having been hit by shelling early that morning.
Speaking over rounds of incoming and outgoing artillery fire, Viktor said his neighbour had moved away.
“But I’ve got nowhere to go,” he said.
AFP journalists nearby saw Ukrainian troops building new defensive lines with shovels and construction equipment.
The city has important symbolic value, and Moscow hopes its capture will make Ukraine’s bombing of Donetsk city more difficult, but its strategic value has been questioned.
“I doubt that Russia, after such staggering losses, has the capacity to turn limited local successes into a major breakthrough,” said Mykola Bielieskov, from Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies.
The battle for Avdiivka, less than 10 kilometres north of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, has been one of the bloodiest of the nearly two-year war.
Many compare it to the battle for Bakhmut, in which tens of thousands of soldiers were killed.
Bielieskov said holding Avdiivka would grant no advantage to Russia, whose positions in the city of Donetsk “even with the ruins of Avdiivka, wouldn’t be fully secured”.
Avdiivka had around 30,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion. Most of the city has since been destroyed and fewer than 1,000 residents remain, say local officials.
“I am surprised that Avdiivka has held out for two years,” Oleksii, a 50-year-old sergeant in the Donetsk region, told AFP on the phone.
Russian forces “destroy everything, level it to the ground,” Oleksii said.
“You can’t hold the city because it no longer exists,” he said. AFP