Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said after arriving in Washington on Wednesday he would hold talks with President Joe Biden to strengthen Kyiv's defense capabilities against Russia's devastating invasion.
Zelensky's political adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said earlier that the visit, his first overseas trip since Russia invaded 300 days ago, showed the deep trust between Kyiv and Washington and offered him the opportunity to explain what arms Kyiv needed.
"I will hold a series of negotiations to strengthen the resilience and defense capabilities of Ukraine," Zelensky said in a statement on Telegram alongside photos of him on U.S. soil as he prepared to go into talks with Biden at the White House.
"Next year, we must return the Ukrainian flag and freedom to our entire land, to all our people," he said.
Wearing his trademark olive green pants and sweater, Zelensky arrived at the White House. He met Biden and his wife on the lawn and Biden guided the Ukrainian president with an arm around his back.
They will participate in a joint news conference with the U.S. president and then go to Capitol Hill to address a joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
Ahead of Zelensky's arrival, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the United States would provide another $1.85 billion in military aid for Ukraine including a Patriot air defense system to help it ward off barrages of Russian missiles.
Ukraine in recent weeks has come under repeated Russian missile and drone strikes targeting its energy infrastructure, leaving millions of people without electricity or running water in the dead of a freezing winter.
The Patriot is deemed to be one of the most advanced U.S. air defense systems, offering protection against attacking aircraft as well as cruise and ballistic missiles.
"...Weapons, weapons and more weapons. It is important to personally explain why we need certain types of weapons," Podolyak said. "In particular, armored vehicles, the latest missile defense systems and long-range missiles."
Zelensky has made a point of staying close to his people during the war and advocating for his former Soviet state on the world stage, with daring trips to battlefronts, countless calls with world leaders and video link speeches to parliaments and international institutions.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told MSNBC that diplomacy would be discussed with Zelensky, but the Ukrainian leader would be put under no pressure for peace talks.
Kirby said Washington was seeing no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to engage in peacemaking.
"Clearly we're going to make sure that President Zelensky, when he leaves this country, knows that he's leaving with the full support of the United States going forward," Kirby told MSNBC in a separate interview earlier.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday it saw no chance of peace talks with Kyiv. In a call with reporters, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that continued Western arms supplies to Ukraine would lead to a "deepening" of the conflict.
Fix problems, Putin tells army
Putin was defiant on Wednesday at an end-of-year meeting of top defense chiefs, saying Russian forces were fighting like heroes in Ukraine, would be equipped with modern weapons and would achieve all Moscow's goals.
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 aiming to capture the capital Kyiv in days, a goal that quickly proved out of reach.
Moscow then focused on advancing along eastern and southern fronts but has suffered a string of battlefield defeats since the summer - amid widespread reports of disorganization, poor training and shoddy gear - and Putin on Tuesday conceded that conditions in Russian-held areas were "highly complicated".
In his remarks on Wednesday, Putin said there were no financial limits on what the government would provide in terms of equipment and hardware, but the army had to learn from and fix the problems it had experienced in Ukraine.
He gave his backing to a plan by his defense minister to boost the size of the armed forces by more than 30% to 1.5 million combat personnel. A call-up of 300,000 reservists in September was plagued with problems, with many men physically unfit or too old and lacking basic equipment.
Putin also said he still considered Ukrainians - who have been killed in their tens of thousands, forced to flee in their millions, and seen whole towns and cities destroyed - to be a "brotherly" people.
He blamed the war on "third countries (seeking) the disintegration of the Russian world", revisiting a familiar theme. The West has rejected this as nonsense, calling Russian actions in Ukraine an imperial-style land grab.
Zelensky compared to Churchill
With the United States the largest military aid donor to Ukraine among Western allies, the Biden administration has provided about $20 billion in assistance to Ukraine, including artillery ammunition, munitions for NASAMS air defense systems and for high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS).
Zelensky has repeatedly called on the West to supply more advanced weaponry, ranging from modern battle tanks to missile defense systems.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, likened Zelenskiy's quest to Britain's World War Two leader Winston Churchill, who sought U.S. aid against Nazi Germany.
"Where Winston Churchill stood generations ago, so too President Zelenskiy stands not just as a president, but also as an ambassador of freedom itself," the top Senate Democrat said. "Now is not the time...to take our foot off the gas when it comes to helping Ukraine."