Pat Stevens/
Railway stations in central and western Ukraine have been bombed by Russia today, just hours after two of America’s top officials visited Kyiv by rail, MailOnline reports.
Russian missiles hit stations in the Lviv, Rivne, Vinnyista and Kyiv regions in the early hours, Ukrainian media reported, including one in the town of Krasne – just 70 miles from the border with Poland. More explosions were heard in Zhmerynka, in central Ukraine, around 150 miles south west of Kyiv.
Alexander Kamyshin, the head of Ukraine’s rail service, said the strikes had all come within an hour of one-another and had caused casualties, without giving further details.
News of strikes so close to the Polish border will be seen as a warning from the Kremlin to the West, just hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin used railways in the region to travel to Kyiv and meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Their meeting is thought to have taken place between 10pm and 1am local time before they returned to Poland, with Blinken telling journalists afterwards that the delegation travelled by rail. The strike on Krasne appears to have targeted the main line from Poland into Ukraine, though Blinken and Austin’s exact route has not been revealed.
The visit marked the highest-level American delegation to have gone to Kyiv since war with Russia broke out more than two months ago.
Blinken and Austin’s trip – which was only announced to the public after it had taken place – featured a face-to-face sit-down with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“In terms of Russia’s war aims, Russia has already failed and Ukraine has already succeeded,” Blinken said from Poland after returning from the meeting.
Blinken and Austin used the visit to announce that the United States had approved a $165 million sale of ammunition for Ukraine’s war effort, along with more than $300 million in foreign military financing.
“The strategy that we’ve put in place – massive support for Ukraine, massive pressure against Russia, solidarity with more than 30 countries engaged in these efforts – is having real results,” Blinken told reporters in Poland the day after the visit.
“When it comes to Russia’s war aims, Russia is failing. Ukraine is succeeding. Russia has sought as its principal aim to totally subjugate Ukraine, to take away its sovereignty, to take away its independence. That has failed.”
For his part, Zelenskyy in the meeting said he was “very thankful” for the American aid and particularly praised President Joe Biden for his “personal support.”
“The priorities are weapons and support from the United States of America and our partners, European leaders, in terms of our army’s strength and support in certain areas,” the Ukrainian president said.
“The second issue is the sanctions policy against the Russian Federation because of the full-scale invasion and all the terror they have committed in Ukraine.”
The three-hour meeting came Sunday, the 60th day since the start of the invasion, as Ukraine pressed the West for more powerful weapons against Russia’s campaign in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where Moscow’s forces sought to dislodge the last Ukrainian troops in the battered port city of Mariupol.
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