Blinken Visit To Ukraine Marked By Controversy

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – With Russian troops advancing towards Ukraine’s second largest city, Kyiv was awaiting more U.S. military aid after a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken marked by controversies.

In a statement, he said the U.S. is “rushing ammunition, armored vehicles, missiles [and] air defenses” to Ukraine’s front line.

He pledged that $2 billion would be spent to speed up delivery.

His comments came as Russian advances forced Ukrainians to retreat from several villages in the Kharkiv region, and thousands were evacuated.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has canceled all his foreign trips to concentrate on the new incursion.

Yet fresh from a day of delivering optimistic prognoses about how Ukraine would fare in the war with Russia despite gloomy news from the front lines, Blinken sang an upbeat song with a Kyiv bar band on his fourth visit to the capital since the conflict began in 2022.

“I’ve come to Ukraine with a message: You are not alone,” Blinken had told an audience of students and educators at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute shortly before taking to Barman Dictat’s basement stage.

ENCOURAGING UKRAINE

“Never bet against Ukraine,” he said at a Wednesday news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

But as Blinken, an amateur musician, sang the “keep on rockin’ in the free world” chorus, repeated 12 times in the 4-minute 40-second song, Russian troops were advancing near and around Kharkiv.

Thus, any intended musical encouragement — in both content and venue — left at least some observers scratching their heads.

Kyiv-based analyst Oleksandr Kraiev, director of the North America program at the Ukrainian Prism think tank, said Blinken’s visit was welcome but cautioned that many Ukrainians were puzzled by his two-day stay, including his stop at Barman Dictat, which was seen as inappropriate by some, given the current fraught wartime climate.

“From my point of view, and generally speaking from the point of view of common Ukrainians, it was not a very appropriate sign to go to the bar to have a small song with our band,” he said, noting that Ukrainian military recruitment officers are known to go to bars and nightclubs to check documents and catch draft dodgers.

“So (for the) secretary of state of the United States also to go to a bar, to have a small concert for people who are blamed for not enlisting in the Ukrainian army,” Kraiev said, “it’s not, let’s say, a catastrophe, it’s not a faux pas, but it’s something that is not very desirable from the point of view of common Ukrainians.”

Reporters also noticed that, unlike previous visits, Blinken traveled with an extensive delegation and media and spent the night in Kyiv.

Blinken tried to encourage Ukraine not to give up its battle against invading Russian troops. Yet, it may be “Rockin’ in the Free World,” its chorus and opening stanza — “There’s colors on the street; Red, white and blue; People shufflin’ their feet; People sleepin’ in their shoes; But there’s a warnin’ sign; on the road ahead; There’s a lot of people sayin’; we’d be better off dead.” — that the visit is remembered for, The Associated Press (AP) said.

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