A White House official said the two men spoke for 30 minutes.
According to the transcript of the interview posted on the White House website, President Biden assured President Zelensky of the ongoing support
of his country, while Ukraine defends against Russian aggression
which is in its sixth day.
MM. Biden and Zelensky have discussed how the United States, with allies and partners, is working to hold Russia accountable, including imposing sanctions that are already impacting the Russian economy
the White House said.
[Nous avons discuté du] American leadership on sanctions against Russia and [de] defense aid to Ukraine
for his part indicated in English the President of the Ukrainian State through his Twitter account.
We must stop the aggressor as soon as possible
he said, thanking the United States for its support, as Russia stepped up its offensive on major cities in Ukraine.
According to a tweet from the Ukrainian embassy in London published a few days ago, Mr. Zelensky, identified as the priority target of Moscow, declined the American offer to get him out of the country. The fight rages on; I need ammunition, not a driver
he would have retorted.
In a joint interview with CNN and Reuters, the Ukrainian president, looking tired and speaking in Kyiv from a heavily guarded government compound, urged President Biden to deliver a strong and useful
on the Russian invasion during his State of the Union address, which the American president will deliver in the evening.
As soon as he took office, Joe Biden had fought between democracies and autocracies
especially China and Russia, one of the key axes of its foreign policy, but the recent crisis gives this issue a particular resonance.
Speaking to Fox News, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also said the Biden administration is looking closely at the possibility that Russia has committed war crimes, including the use of cluster bombs.
Evoking possible war crimes
and crimes against humanity
the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, for his part announced as fast as possible
the opening of an investigation into the situation in Ukraine for several years
. He said a request from an ICC member state would speed up the process.
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Mélanie Joly, also indicated on Tuesday that Ottawa intended to file a petition to this effect at the ICC during the day, like in Lithuania the day before.
An aid plan in preparation
Recently, the White House demanded from Congress an aid plan of 6.6 billion US dollars intended for Ukraine, but also for its neighbors, where refugees are flocking, to meet humanitarian and security needs.
His request is likely to garner bipartisan support in a capital where polarization and division are yet exacerbated. Even if the two parties still do not agree on the distribution of the amounts to be granted to humanitarian aid and defence, the sums granted could ultimately exceed the objective of the White House.
Lined up unequivocally behind Ukraine, Western countries have refrained from intervening militarily, but have multiplied deliveries of military equipment to this country in addition to implementing several sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s regime, excluding example of many Russian banks of the SWIFT interbank platform, an essential cog in global finance.
On Monday, the G7 countries also banned all transactions with the Russian Central Bank, which they intend to reduce to impotence in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
Before the start of the Russian offensive, President Biden said he was convinced that President Putin had made the decision
to invade Ukraine, a claim based on US intelligence information. His remarks had however been greeted with caution by the international community, and the imminence of a Russian offensive, minimized by Kiev itself.
