KYIV – US President Joe Biden will use the remaining four months of his term “to put Ukraine in the best possible position to prevail,” a close advisor said..
Speaking remotely to a forum in Kyiv, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan also said Biden will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in late September at the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss aid to Ukraine.
“President Zelenskyy has said that ultimately this war has to end through negotiations, and we need them to be strong in those negotiations,” Sullivan said, adding Ukraine would decide when to enter talks with Russia.
Meanwhile, the military aid North Korea provides to Russia, including large amounts of ammunition, is the most damaging for Ukraine, its intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said Saturday.
He was speaking at a conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv, where he answered a question on support from other Russian allies, Iran and China.
“Our biggest problem from all these allies of Russia is from North Korea. Because with the volume of military products that they supply, they actually affect the intensity of the fighting,” Budanov said.
His remarks came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to deepen ties with Russia as he held talks with visiting security chief Sergei Shoigu.
Kyiv has been monitoring arms deliveries from Pyongyang to Moscow and feels their effect on the battlefield.
Biden will be replaced next January either by his Vice President Kamala Harris, who has indicated she will continue his policies of backing Ukraine, or by former president Donald Trump, who would not say at a debate earlier this week whether he wanted Kyiv to win the war.
The announcement of the upcoming Biden-Zelenskyy meeting came after Moscow and Kyiv earlier Saturday swapped 103 prisoners of war each in a UAE-brokered deal, and as Russian forces continue to gain ground in their grinding offensive in east Ukraine.
The Russians released in the latest swap were captured during Ukraine’s recent cross-border incursion into the Kursk region, Moscow said, while some of the Ukrainians freed had been held prisoner since Moscow seized the Azovstal steel plant in May 2022.
“Another 103 soldiers were returned to Ukraine from Russian captivity,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
Russia confirmed it had “handed over” 103 Ukrainian army prisoners, and in return received 103 Russian servicemen captured by Kyiv.
“All Russian servicemen are on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance,” the Russian defense ministry said.
Despite ongoing hostilities, Russia and Ukraine have managed to swap hundreds of prisoners throughout the two-and-half-year conflict — often in deals brokered by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Turkey.
The announcement came a day after Zelenskyy said 49 Ukrainian POWs had been returned from Russia, and three weeks ago both sides swapped 115 prisoners each in a deal also mediated by the UAE.
The prisoner swap came as Russia pushed ahead in east Ukraine, where it claims to have captured a string of villages in recent weeks.
The Russian defense ministry said in a daily briefing it had “liberated” the village of Zhelanne Pershe, less than 30 kilometers from the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
Pokrovsk lies on the intersection of a key road that supplies Ukrainian troops and towns across the eastern front and has long been a target for Moscow’s army.
More than half of the city’s 60,000 residents have fled since the invasion began in February 2022, with evacuations ramping up in recent weeks as Moscow’s army closes in.
Ukraine had hoped its major cross-border incursion into the Kursk region last month would slow down Russia’s advances in the east.
On Friday, Zelenskyy said Moscow had been slowed down somewhat but conceded the situation on the eastern front was “very difficult”.
“Ukraine has taken bold and assertive steps… but that area around Pokrovsk is of unique concern,” Sullivan told the Kyiv forum on Saturday.
Russia meanwhile claimed this week to have clawed back a swath of territory in its western Kursk region, as it mounted what appeared to be a counter-offensive.
