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CIA Director William J. Burns met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv connected Tuesday, reaffirming U.S. enactment for the state connected the aforesaid time Russian missiles pummeled the superior and sent residents fleeing for cover.
The sojourn came astatine a infinitesimal of Ukrainian triumph, days aft its forces liberated the metropolis of Kherson and Zelensky declared a turning constituent successful the war. But it was a infinitesimal of bonzer hostility and uncertainty, too, arsenic a Russian-made rocket appeared to onshore successful Poland, raising the question of however the NATO confederation mightiness respond to a imaginable onslaught connected a subordinate state.
Burns, whom President Biden often has dispatched to talk with Russian and Ukrainian leaders, besides met with his Ukrainian quality counterparts and discussed a U.S. informing helium had delivered connected Monday to the caput of Russia’s overseas quality work “not to usage atomic weapons” successful its warfare connected Ukraine, according to a U.S. authoritative who spoke connected the information of anonymity to picture the delicate discussions.
Burns had met with the Russian official, SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin, successful Ankara, the Turkish capital.
In Kyiv, Burns “reinforced the U.S. committedness to supply enactment to Ukraine successful its combat against Russian aggression,” the authoritative said. The manager was safely wrong the U.S. Embassy during the rocket strikes, the authoritative noted.
There was nary denotation the Russian attacks were meant to coincide with Burns’s visit. Russian media disclosed his sojourn to Ankara, successful what has go a regular signifier of publicizing Russian officials’ meetings with the CIA director, who customarily keeps his question docket private.
Burns, a seasoned diplomat and erstwhile ambassador to Russia, went to Moscow past November and met with apical Kremlin officials, speaking by telephone with President Vladimir Putin. He carried a missive from Biden to Putin and warned the Russian president that should helium invade Ukraine, the United States would enforce monolithic consequences.
Burns has cautioned that officials indispensable beryllium connected defender to Putin’s threats to usage tactical atomic weapons. “We person to instrumentality precise earnestly [any] benignant of threats fixed everything that’s astatine stake,” Burns said successful an interview with CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell successful precocious September. “And, you know, the rhetoric that helium and different elder Russian leaders person utilized is reckless and profoundly irresponsible.”
Burns added that U.S. quality agencies had not yet seen “any applicable evidence” that Putin was moving person to utilizing atomic weapons. That has been the lawsuit implicit the people of the war, with Putin making threats that officials accidental aren’t reflected successful signs that Russia is deploying the instrumentality and unit indispensable to usage specified weapons connected the battlefield.
Tuesday’s rocket strikes connected Kyiv followed a two-week lull, and initially galore residents ignored them. When explosions reverberated astir the city, radical sought structure successful basements and corridors.
Pentagon property caput Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “Russian aircraft” had fired the missiles, noting that “for the duration of this campaign, Russia has utilized a premix of capabilities,” including airborne, ground-based and sea-launched missiles, to people cities and civilian infrastructure.
On Monday, Zelensky visited Kherson, the sole determination superior that Russia had captured pursuing its penetration successful February. He declared to hundreds of radical gathered successful the cardinal quadrate that the city’s liberation marked “the opening of the extremity of the war” and pledged that Ukrainian forces would thrust Russia from the state entirely.
Liz Sly successful Kyiv, Ukraine, and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.
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