US says it will continue to offer security assistance to Ukraine


The White House said Sunday (October 9) it would continue to arm Ukraine, but declined to comment directly on an explosion that damaged Russia’s road and rail bridge to Crimea.

“We really don’t have anything more to add to the information on the explosion on the bridge,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s This Week program. “What I can tell you is that Mr. Putin started this war, and Mr. Putin could end it today, simply by moving his troops out of the country.”

Kirby said the two sides needed to find a way to negotiate an end to the war, but Putin had shown no interest in doing so.

“Quite the contrary,” he added. “By calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists, politically annexing, or at least trying to annex four regions of Ukraine, he showed every sign he was doubling down,” Kirby added.

This, Kirby said, “is why, quite frankly, we are in almost daily contact with the Ukrainians and we will continue to provide security assistance to them.”

Broadly echoing White House comments last week after US President Joe Biden raised the possibility of a nuclear ‘Armageddon’, Kirby said the US had no indication that Putin had made the decision. to use nuclear weapons and that there was no reason to change the United States. strategic positioning.

“The president reflected the very high stakes that are at stake right now…when you have a modern nuclear power, and the leader of that modern nuclear power, willing to use irresponsible rhetoric like Mr. Putin did,” he said. said Kirby. .