Blinken and Austin in Kyiv: the US visit of April 2022
A look back at the highest-level American visit to the Ukrainian capital since the invasion began, and the diplomatic activity around it.
What did it mean when two senior American officials travelled to Kyiv in the middle of a war? On 25 April 2022, the day this retrospective covers, the visit was still fresh: the day before, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had arrived in Ukraine and met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
As reported at the time, it was the highest-level American visit in Kyiv since the beginning of the Russian invasion. During the talks, Zelenskyy was informed that new military assistance for Ukraine had been approved.
Fighting in the east
The visit came as the conflict centred on the east. On 20 April 2022, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych claimed that Ukraine was blocking an attempted Russian advance on Sloviansk. On 22 April 2022, Serhiy Haidai, head of the Luhansk regional military administration, reported that Russian shelling had disrupted an attempt to evacuate civilians from Rubizhne, where heavy fighting was under way, preventing a bus from reaching the town. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said there were no open evacuation corridors through Russian-controlled territory because of danger on the routes.
The same day, European Council President Charles Michel and the EU's High Representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, strongly urged immediate and safe humanitarian exit from Mariupol and other besieged cities in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pressure on Moscow
International pressure on Russia was also visible elsewhere in the days before. On 20 April 2022, finance ministers from the United States and many European countries left a closed G20 session in Washington when Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov began delivering his prepared speech virtually, according to a person familiar with the meeting. This followed US President Joe Biden's call to remove Russia from the G20, a step that requires the consent of all members, and China appeared not to approve of it.
On the same date, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in Riga that Germany would give up Russian energy imports by the end of the year, with oil imports halved by summer and then reduced to zero.
Moscow and Beijing
On 19 April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would not use nuclear weapons and would continue with conventional arms, responding to American allegations that it might use them. The same day, China's deputy foreign minister Le Yucheng said Beijing would strengthen strategic ties with Russia and confirmed support for Putin, as Russian forces faced accusations of war crimes over the killing of civilians.
Against that backdrop, the Kyiv meeting on 24 April 2022 stood out as a show of American commitment delivered in person.
